Mr.
HARRIS. My name isKevin
Harris. I am 28 years old, I live in a small town in WashingtonState
where I work as
a welder. I
have
a 5-year-old son named Jade. I completed the ninth grade in school.

I’m
not a public speaker or a trained witness, and I am very nervous. My
lawyers
have told me that there is great risk for me in coming here because
people may
misunderstand me or because I might misspeak in some damaging way.

But
someone needs to tell you the truth about what happened at the Y and at
Ruby
Ridge, and I'm going to do that.

I
didn’t come here—and I never was at Ruby Ridge— because of religion or
politics.I know that a lot of people
were offended by Randy’s and Vicki’s beliefs.But
I visited the Weavers simply because they were like a
family to me.
They loved me and I loved them. They always welcomed me, accepted me,
and made
me feel that I belonged. They were warm and hospitable. There was
always a
place to sleep and food on the table, even when they didn't have much
for
themselves.

I
met the Weavers when I was 16. I guess I was a troubled kid. My dad
died when I
was 2, and I was raised by a series of step- fathers. The Weavers
permitted me
to be part of their family— something which was missing from my
life—and I welcomed
it. I knew them, and sometimes lived
with them, off and onfor
the next 9 years, until August 1992.

I
rarely lived with them on a full-time basis.There
was one period of about 8 months, beginning in the
spring of 1984
right after they had finished their cabin, when I was there
continuously.But mostly I came and went.I remember one period of about a
year-and-a-half
when I didn't see them at all.

I
remember going to the cabin in late August or early September 1991.
Vicki was
pregnant with Elisheba and her mom and dad came to visit. They wanted
her to
come down off the mountain to be near a hospital, but she refused. They
made me
promise to stay with the family until the baby was born in case there
were
problems, I stayed until the day after Elisheba was born, then left for
the
winter.

Sometimes
I carried guns when I was at the cabin.I
heard later that the marshals watched us with their spy cameras and
figured out
that I had a gun 66 percent of the time. The Weavers lived off the
land. There
was a garden, and we hunted whenever game was available. When we killed
a deer,
Vicki would can the venison. I also felt better having a gun In the
woods, for
protection from animals like mountain lions, bears, and moose, which
are fairly
common up there.Many people in BoundryCounty carry guns as a matter of
course.It’s not uncommon to see men,
even women, carrying guys in the grocery store.

We
had no idea that the deputy marshals would be in the woods on that
Friday. In
fact, I really didn't believe that the marshals would come up and try
to arrest
Randy. I figured that they would just wait him out. I mean, that's what
would
have made sense. When I learned at the trial that they had come to the
cabin on
a number of occasions, I was very surprised. Whenever I was at the
cabin, I
freely went to town, picked up mail, and went to the grocery store, and
no law
enforcement officer ever stopped me or even questioned me.

The
only time I was ever contacted by law enforcement officers was the
previous
August, when a man who identified himself as a marshal called my foster
mom in Spokane
looking for me. I
returned the call. The man told me, "You're probably not going to be
able
to help me, but I want to ask you something. What kinds of guns does
Weaver
have, and would he booby-trap his property?" I said, "You're right, I
can't help you." He said OK and hung up.

I
spent a good part of the spring and summer of 1992 at the Weaver cabin.
I tried
to spend a week every month or so with my son, who lived with his
mother in Spokane.
I came back up to
the cabin the weekend before the 21st after one of these visits.

It
was just bad luck that I was even at the cabin that week. I had been
promised a
job running equipment on a hay farm over at Ephrata, WA.
The job was supposed to have begun that Monday, the 17th, but it was
delayed a
week. And I don't remember exactly why; the hay was wet or something or
some
equipment had broken down. If not for that, I wouldn't even have been
there on
the 21st.

Anyway,
it was a typical week. I remember that I took the kids, except
Elisheba, down
to Ruby Creek on Thursday, and we spent the day fishing and swimming.
We caught
a nice mess of fish, small trout, and took them back and fried them up
for dinner.
Incidentally—it says here, "Incidentally, we didn't take any guns ** *
on
that trip." But I believe that I was carrying a sidearm.

August
21, 1992, was a Friday, and Friday was the day which the Weavers kept
as the
Sabbath. We did no work on that day— just relaxed, read, and visited.

Late
in the morning we heard the dogs bark, and we went outside. Striker,
the big
yellow Lab, frequently barked at squirrels or noises or anything, but
this was
not that kind of a bark. It was more insistent, as if someone or
something were
around.

When
we got outside to the rocks, Striker had gone on down the hill near the
lower
garden, and he was barking up into the woods, toward an opening where
we had
taken down some trees for firewood.

Sam
and Randy went down the driveway, and I went down a small path through
the
rocks. They got to the garden area ahead of me.

By
the time I got down there, Striker had come out of the woods and was at
the
road with Randy and Sam. He wasn't barking any more, but he was still
interested
in something in the woods.

Striker
started trotting down the road toward the tree line, then looking back
at us as
if he wanted us to follow. It's open in this

area,
and just before the dense trees begin, there's an old ski trail up to
the right
where they used to drag out logs, and Strike stopped there. Up the hill
to your
right after a few yards, the slope flattens out, and a game trail cuts
through.

The
dog headed up toward this game trail. I was thinking that an animal
might be
there since lots of deer come down to raid our garden. We were about
out of
venison, and we would have been glad to shoot a deer.

Randy
and Sam and I all went up to the game trail. Striker seemed to be
sniffing
something, and I told Randy I was going to follow the game trail. Sam
said,
"Me, too." Randy said he would go back and head down the other road.

Sam
and I started down the game trail—the dog ,Sam, and then me. The dog was walking along ahead of us,
sniffing and
wagging his tail, not running. He was no longer barking. He'd go ahead,
then
wait for us to catch up. He never got far enough ahead that we had to
call him
back. After a while, I figured that whatever animal had been there was
probably
gone.

We
came out of the woods above the fern field. I immediately looked up the
road
thinking I might see the hind end of a deer running away. We didn’t see
anything, so we turned and walked down to the fern field.

The
officers testified that they came out in or below the fern field, so
I'm sure
that Striker wasn't directly tracking them at that point.

We
went through the fern field and down the road to where it connects up
with the
road up to that cabin, what everybody now called the Y. It's an old
logging
road, but it's really more of a trail. The trees grow over the top, and
it's
dark under them, almost like a tunnel.

The
trail is fairly narrow, and we walked single file. We were just walking
along,
heading back to the cabin. I was carrying my 30.06 rifle in my right
hand,
hanging down at my side. Sam was about 10 or 15 feet ahead of me.

As
we got to the Y, I saw Striker run off ahead. Suddenly I saw that he
was near a
person. The person had camouflage clothing on and seemed to have a
beard. He
wasn't looking at us. He was looking up in the direction of the road to
the cabin,
so I saw his profile. He had what looked like a pistol in his right
hand.

At
my trial I learned that the beard I saw was really a camouflage
stocking over
the marshal's face and that the pistol was the silenced sub-machine gun.

Then
the dog seemed to lung for the man's hands, the way that Striker did
when you
play with him. I thought about telling the man, don't worry, the dog
won't hurt
you, that's how he plays. But I never got the chance.

I
was still walking forward, and the dog was jumping around the man. The
dog then
moved away from the man, in a circle, and ended up facing uphill.

Suddenly
the dog was shot. My impression was that the man near him was the one
who shot
him, but I can't be sure of that. I watched as the camouflaged man ran
into the
brush.

Sam
stopped above the dog. As I came up next to him, he started to raise
his weapon
and said, "You shot my dog, you son of a bitch."

As
soon as he started to raise his weapon up, I turned to my right and
headed for
cover.

As
I did, I saw smoke puffs and brass shell casing flying in the air down
in the
woods below the trail. I assumed Sam was shooting and that someone was
shooting
back at him, but I didn't actually see Sam shoot.

In
fact, once I turned away from Sam as he raised his gun, I never saw him
alive
again. I have since learned that his shell casings were found farther
up the
road, so he probably wasn't shooting at that time.

I
took two, maybe three steps crouched down, found some cover beside the
woods.
There were still shots being fired, and so I fired once into the brush.
I
believed that whoever was in the woods was shooting at both Sam and me.
I have
since learned that there were at least six bullet grates and metal
fragments
found in the area right behind me, so I'm sure that I was right.

I
continued to move further into the woods and came up next to a stump.

Up
behind me I heard Sam saying something that made me think he'd been
hit. It was
something like "Oh, shit!" I'm not sure where he was, but I could
tell he was well back behind me. I could also hear Randy yelling that
we should
come home, and I heard Sam say, "I'm coming, Dad." I also hear Sam
say, "C'mon Kevin, Kevin c'mon"

I
heard a dull hissing sound like "thhhpp," and right away I heard Sam
yelp. It was the kind of sound you'd make if you were slugged in your
chest
with a fist. I didn't hear anything from Sam after that.

I
heard moaning from the woods, and someone saying, "I'm hit, I'm hit."
There was someone standing up, leaning over something, probably a
person. The
person standing up said, "I know, I know." Then this person jumped
unto the road and said, "U.S.Marshals! U.S.
Marshals!" This was the first time I'd heard anyone identify themselves.

Then
another man jumped up on the road and looked up in my direction. I
fired my gun
about 10 feet to his left. He jumped back into the brush, and I never saw him
again.

Obviously, I
could have shot
and killed
either or both of these men.

Then
nothing happened for 5 or 10 minutes. I waited, frozen. I didn't hear
any shooting
or anything that I can recall. Then I heard a vehicle moving down
below. It
sounded like a rig driving up to the Y. I gathered myself and dove back
further
into the woods. A branch caught my hat and knocked it off. I ran deeper
into
the woods, and then turned uphill toward the cabin.

I
ran through the woods alongside the road a ways, and then I saw Sam
laying out
on the road. I came out on the road above Sam. I put my rifle down on
the
ground and lifted up my hands, looked down toward the Y and said, "I
just
want to check on Sam." I walked down to where his body was, in plain
view
of the men at the Y.

Sam
was lying face down in the road. He had on blue jeans, a white
tee-shirt, a
flannel shirt, and a sheepskin vest, with the fuzzy side in. I rolled him over, and
there was
blood all over his

front.
His eyes were rolled back in his head, half closed. His lips were
turning blue.
He wasn't breathing. I felt for a pulse, and there was none. I left him
laying
on his back.

I
learned later that Sam's right arm was shot up pretty bad, probably
from when
he was shot the first time, but I didn't see the arm wound then. I also
learned
later that the killing shot, the second
shot, went right through him, from the back, and pierced his heart.

Then
I picked up my rifle and headed up the hill figuring that eyes were
everywhere
in the woods watching me. As I got up closer to the cabin, I heard
someone say,
'There's Kevin!" I tried to think of how to tell Vicki and Randy that
Sam
was dead, and finally I just said it. I sat down and started to cry.

They
couldn't believe it. They said, Are you sure? I said I was sure, that I had stopped and
looked at his
body. Randy went kind of berserk. He grabbed his gun and fired it up
into the
air repeatedly. He screamed and yelled and cursed. Vicki screamed and
cried.
Then the girls came out, and Vicki told them what had happened.

After
a while, Vicki and Randy decided that they had to go get Sam's body. I
told
them where he was,
and I
tried to
talk them out of' going down there. I was afraid they'd get shot, too.
But they
insisted on going. I stayed with the girls.

I
knew when they found Sam's body because I could hear Vicki wailing and
screaming, and Randy, too.

Awhile
later, I heard Vicki call to me from down by the garden. She said,
"Kevin,
come down here. we need some help." They had gotten Sam's body to the
trees, and then Randy and I got him as far as the pumphouse. Then I
picked him
up, put him over my shoulder, and carried him to the small cabin we
called the birthing
shed. I laid him on the bed where Vicki gave birth to Elisheba and left
him
there with his mother and father.

I
understand they took his clothes off; cleaned him up, and wrapped him
in a
sheet, but I wasn't there for that. After a while, Vicki came out of
the shed
and came over to me and said, "I've never once wished that that was you
and not him." Then she gave me a big hug.

For
a long time after Sam was put in the birthing shed, I sat by myself on
a rock
ledge looking out to the east. Later I went back to the house. The
girls cried
all night. I assume they didn't sleep. I know I didn't.

The
next morning no one talked much. We were in a daze. I re member Vicki
cooking
something for Elisheba, but I don't recall anyone else eating.

Early
in the morning, we heard the other dogs whimpering, and Randy and Sara
went out
to feed them. We listened to the radio and heard a report that I had
shot and
killed a deputy U.S.
marshal.

We
heard sirens in the valley. We figured they would be coming up at some
point
with bullhorns to demand that we come out. Late in the afternoon, we
heard the
dog, which was tied on the rock outcropping, whimpering like he might
be
wrapped up in his chain. Sara wanted to check on him, and Randy wanted
to look
at Sam. I needed batteries for my flashlight, and I knew there were some

in
a stash
of Sam's personal
things that he kept in a box out on the rocks, so I went with them.

Sara
checked on the dog, and then followed her dad over to the shed.
Suddenly there was
a shot.

Weaver
hollered, "I'm hit, I'm hit!" Sara started pushing him around the
edge of the shed. I went straight back down the driveway. Rardy was
screaming,
"I'm hit, Ma, I'm hit!" Vicki came out of the door, halfway along the
rock path, called at us to come in. She went back to the door, opened
it, then
stood in it, holding it open.

Randy
and Sara were ahead of me. I was running until I caught up with them,
then I
slowed down to their pace. I had my rifle in my left hand. As I started
through
the door, I heard a loud boom. I was looking at Vicki, at her face. As
I heard
the shot, it was as if there was something moving under her skin, then
her face
was deformed, almost seemed to explode.

Next
thing I knew I was lying on the floor. When I couldn't feel my left
hand, I
realized I'd been hit.

Rachel
was screaming really bad. I think she's the only one who saw what
happened
besides me. Randy picked the baby up, and she was all sprayed with
blood and
tissue. Randy handed her to Rachel, then turned to Vicki, lifted up her
head,
and said, "Oh, Ma * * *”,

Vicki
convulsed several times, and then was still. Randy pulled her body into
the
kitchen. There was a big pool of blood flowing out of her onto the
floor. At
first I thought it was my blood and for sure I was going to die.

They'd
killed Sam and Vicki and almost killed Randy and me, and we were afraid
that if
we came outside they'd finish us all off. So we stayed inside.

You've
heard from others about the siege. I lay in a chair for 9 days, in and
out of
consciousness, my wounds beginning to rot and stink. I only got up
twice the
whole time, both times to go to the bathroom. Both times I fainted.
There were
bright search lights at night and always the voice of the negotiators,
calling
out to talk to Vicki, as if she were still alive.

I
kept hearing on the radio that I was wanted
for murder. By then Bo Gritz and Jack McLamb had come up to help out,
and we
were talking to them. They brought me a paper where the FBI promised
that if I
went out, they would leave Weaver and the girls alone. I decided to go
and went
out with Jack McLamb.

At
the hospital two FBI agents questioned me while I was on a bed, with
doctors
and nurses working on me. I explained as best I could while the doctors
were
trying to treat me what had happened at the Y.

I
was in the hospital for about 2 ½weeks.

After
I got out of the hospital, I was taken to Boise
and placed in jail, where I was charged in Federal district court with
the
first degree murder of William Degan. The prosecutors demanded the
death
penalty. I was amazed by what they said I was guilty of. They threw the
book at
me: conspiring with the Weaver family to

cause
an armed confrontation with the Government; assault with a deadly
weapon on
Roderick, Cooper, and Degan; assault with a deadly weapon on a
helicopter;
harboring a fugitive—Randy; aiding and abetting the possession of
firearms by
Randy; and using a firearm to commit these crimes.

The
trial lasted about 2 months, and the Government called 56 witnesses.
After
that, we rested our case without calling a single witness. On July 8,
1993,
after more than 10 months in custody, the jury found me not guilty of
all
charges.

Since
that day at the Y, I have learned that Mr. Roderick and Mr. Cooper
claim that
we ambushed the marshals, and Mr. Cooper claims that I just wheeled and
shot
Mr. Degan for no more reason than that he called out to me.

I
want to say this as clearly as I possibly can so that there is
absolutely no
mistake in anyone's mind: what Mr. Roderick and Mr. Cooper say is false.

I
would not have been anywhere near those woods if I had known that all
those men
with assault rifles and a silenced sub-machine gun, and who knows what
other
weapons, were out there. We were just walking along the trail to the Y,
making
a perfect target of ourselves.

If
I had wanted to shoot someone, I had the perfect opportunity when I saw
the man
with the dog. He wasn't even looking at me. But I didn't shoot him,
because I
didn't have any intention of shooting anyone.

The
first thing that happened at the Y is that someone shot Striker. I saw
that,
and I know it with complete certainty. Every-thing else that happened
followed
from that.

Marshal
Thomas Norris who was on the six-man team that day reported, in his
statement
to the FBI and testified under oath at my trial, that the first three
shots
fired at the Y had the distinctive sound of a .223. And anyone who has
been
around guns knows that the sound of a .223 is very different from the
big boom
of a 30.06.

I
learned later that when Marshal Hunt got down to Mrs. Rau's house he
left her
with the impression that the dog was shot first. Her statement to the
FBI says
that he told her, "Roderick finally put down the dog. Right after he
put
the dog down, the marshals realized they were going to be ambushed by
the
Weavers."

I
also learned later long after my trial had begun that when Captain Dave
Neal,
of the Idaho State Police Team, got to the Y late that night and met
with Mr.
Roderick, that Mr. Roderick left him with the clear impression that the
dog had
been shot first. And after the Justice Department report came out, I
learned
that Mr. Henry Hudson, the Director of the U.S. Marshals Service, had
the same
impression.

At
page 184 of the report, Mr. Danny Coulson is quoted saying that he met
with
Director Hudson and two other high officials from the Marshals Service
on the
evening of the 21st. Mr. Hudson described the incident in this way,
"One
of the Deputy United States Marshals had been attacked by a dog and had
shot
the dog which started a firelight. During the firefight one Deputy
United
States Marshal had been killed."

Also,
Mr. Cooper has denied all along that he shot Sam. After the FBI found
Sam's
body in the birthing shed, Marshal Mike

Johnson
said, at a press conference, that "I shot Sam in the back." They came
here and told you that it was Randy but the Government's own expert
witness,
Dr. Fackler, said at my trial that Cooper shot Sam and he was right.

According
to their story no one knew that Sam had been killed until they found
his body
the following week. But we, we have known all along that this was false
because
first I and then Randy and Vicki walked down to Sam's body in plain
view of the
Y where the marshals were. I held up my hands and said I was going to
look at
Sam. Vicki and Randy cried and wailed loudly.

We
learned only last week that a former Justice Department official, Mr.
Jeffrey
Howard, knew that Sam was dead less than 24 hours after he was killed.
I
understand that Mr. Hudson provided a statement to the FBI after the
trial in
which he said the same thing, "How could these men have known about
this
unless they were told by one of the marshals on the scene?"

I
never met Mr. Degan but everyone says that he was a very good man and I
am
very, very sorry that he is dead. I do not know what his intentions
were and I
probably will never know. I think it is possible that he was there,
that he was
just like I was, in the middle of something that should not have
happened, that
he did not start and that was out of his control.

Sitting
in that cabin for 8 or 9 days, I was not only scared of dying—in fact,
at times
dying did not look so bad—but I felt sure that if I did survive I would
be
given a meaningless trial in a kangaroo court and then sent off to
prison for
the rest of my life or even executed.

After
all I have been through I am truly thankful for the court system that
we have
in this country. In many other countries in the world just the word of
the
deputy marshals would have been all it took to put me away forever or
worse.
But the court system worked. It presumed me innocent, appointed lawyers
to
represent me and gave me a fair trial with a jury and the jury
acquitted me.

I
would be glad to answer any questions the subcommittee may have.

Senator
SPECTER. Mr. Harris, you are prepared to answer questions at this time?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
SPECTER. All right, the panel will proceed with 15-minute rounds.

Mr.
Harris, why are you testifying today after having earlier declined to
testify?

Mr.
HARRIS. Declined when?

Senator
SPECTER. You had initially said you did not want to come and testify, is that
not correct?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes.

Senator
SPECTER. My question to you then is why did you then change your mind
so that
you are here to testify today?

Mr.
HARRIS. At first my attorneys thought that it would not be a good idea
but
after watching the hearings and hearing what was being told by the
marshals and
the FBI, I felt that I had to.

Senator
SPECTER. Mr. Harris, you said that when you came out and walked down to
the Y
that you were making perfect targets of yourselves. Nobody shot at you,
did
they?

Mr.
HARRIS. Not at that point, no.

Senator
SPECTER. Mr. Harris, you testified that you were amazed by what they
said you
were guilty of. Were you surprised that you were charged with murder in
the
first degree and that they were asking for the death penalty after a U.S.
deputy marshal was

Mr.
HARRIS. No.

It
was the other charges. There was just a bunch of them.

Senator
SPECTER. The other charges. But you were not amazed at being charged
with
murder where they asked for the death penalty after a marshal was
killed?

Mr.HARRIS.
No. I knew they were going to do that. I heard that on the radio while
we were
still in the cabin.

Senator
SPECTER. Mr. Harris, when did you first hear someone identify
themselves as U.S.
marshals?

Mr.
HARRIS. After the, after, pretty much after everything was done with.
After Sam
was killed.

Senator
SPECTER. Are you aware that there has been testimony that U.S. Marshal
Degan,
Deputy Marshal Degan identified himself as a U.S. marshal before any
shots were
fired?

Mr.
HARRIS. I heard that but I never heard anybody identify themselves down
there.

Senator
SPECTER. Had you heard someone identify themselves as a U.S. marshal or a deputy U.S.
marshal would you have fired
at any such person?

Mr.
HARRIS. No.

Senator
SPECTER. Mr. Harris, why did you fire at someone in a context, as I
understand
it, where only—and I do not minimize the killing of the dog,
Striker—but why
would shots be fired in return on the killing of Striker?

Mr.
HARRIS. I did not return—I did not shoot because the dog had been
killed. I,
when I turned and I looked and I was headed towards cover getting out
of there,
when I looked over into the brush I could see puffs of smoke and shell
casings
flying around so I assumed that they were shooting at me.

Senator
SPECTER. So why did you fire?

Mr.
HARRIS. Why did I fire?

Senator
SPECTER. You saw men in camouflage, you knew that

.

Mr.
HARRIS. I did not act

Senator
SPECTER. Wait a second.

Mr.
HARRIS. I am sorry, go ahead.

Senator
SPECTER. You knew that Mr. Randall Weaver had not responded to the
court process.
You had good reason to believe that law enforcement officers were going
to come
for Mr. Weaver, so why did you fire?

Mr.
HARRIS. I did not know who they were when we got down there.

Senator
SPECTER. Well, whom did you think they were?

Mr.
HARRIS. I did not know. It looked like—

Senator
SPECTER. If you did not know, why did you fire?

Mr.
HARRIS. Because
they were
shooting at me. When I fired they were shooting at me.

Senator
SPECTER. Why were they shooting at you?

Mr.
HARRIS. I do not know.

Senator
SPECTER. Who had initiated the fire? Had young Sammy Weaver initiated
the fire?

Mr.
HARRIS. I am not sure.

Senator
SPECTER. Was it possible in your mind, at that time, that young Sammy
had
initiated the fire?

Mr.
HARRIS. I do not know. Or maybe I do not understand.

Senator
SPECTER. Well, in a context where Mr. Randall Weaver has failed to
respond to
court process and you know on the radio that people are going to come
to try to
arrest him, and you are walking down into the area and you see a man in
camouflage, why do you fire in the context of a reasonable concern that
there
might have been law enforcement officials out there?

Mr.
HARRIS. When I saw the man standing in the road he looked like—I
thought he was
a guy in camo and he had a beard and a hat on or something—he looked
like a
local; he looked like a neighbor.

Senator
SPECTER. Well, why would you shoot at him?

Mr.
HARRIS. I did not shoot at him. I did not shoot, I did not shoot at
anybody
until after the dog was shot and then I was heading for cover and there
was
shooting all in front of me. It looked like they were just, you know,
bombarding us with shots, and I just fired into the brush and kept
going.

Senator
SPECTER. Well, who did you think they were?

Mr.
HARRIS. I, at that point, I did not think anything. I was just trying
to get
out of the way.

Senator
SPECTER. You thought you were firing in self-defense in that context?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes.

Senator
SPECTER. You have testified that you gave a statement to the FBI and at
that
time that you were wounded and in bed.

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
SPECTER. And considering all those circumstances, let me read you a
paragraph
from the FBI report on a statement taken, according to this record,
September
1, 1992, by two FBI Agents, John and Houston.

They
are relating your statement now. "By the time Samuel Weaver began
shooting, Harris had caught up and was standing next to Samuel Weaver.
Harris
realized the man or the men in the brush were returning fire when he
observed
smoke puffs coming from the brush and spent cartridges flying around.
Harris
moved to the east side of' the road and got down behind a tree stump.
Harris
fired one shot from his rifle at a man approximately 20 feet away in
the brush
on the other side of the road. Harris raised his rifle and fired so
quickly
that he did not get his rifle up to his face or actually have anything
in his
sights when he fired."

"Immediately
after firing his rifle, Harris heard a man moan and say, 'I'm hit.'
Harris
observed another man dressed in camouflage fatigues standing over the
one who
had been hit and heard the one standing say, 'I know."'

Is
that an accurate statement that the FBI recorded?

Mr.
HARRIS. I cannot remember what I said that day.

Senator
SPECTER. Does it sound right?

Mr.
HARRIS. I do not know. That is not what happened.

Senator
SPECTER. Well, according to what the FBI wrote down here, "Harris
raised
his rifle and fired so quickly that he did not get his rifle up to his
face or
actually have anything in his sights when he fired. Immediately after
firing
his rifle He heard a man moan and say, 'I'm hit.'"

Now,
according to that sequence it sounds as if the man who was hit
apparently,
Deputy Marshal Degan, was struck by a bullet which you fired. Would you
disagree
with that?

Mr.
HARRIS. With which part of it?

Senator
SPECTER. Would you. disagree with the part that you fired the shot
which
apparently hit Deputy Marshal Degan?

Mr.
HARRIS. No. I do not disagree with that.

Senator
SPECTER. Well, do you disagree that that is what the statement says?
The
statement says, "Harris raised his rifle and fired so quickly"—it
says, "Harris fired one shot from his rifle at a man approximately 20
feet
away in the brush on the other side of the road. Harris raised his
rifle and
fired so quickly that he did not get his rifle up to his face or
actually have
anything in his sights when he fired. Immediately after firing his
rifle,
Harris heard a man moan and say, 'I'm hit."'

Does
it not sound to you like you fired the shot that hit Deputy Marshal
Degan?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes.

Senator
SPECTER. Mr. Harris, did you ever see a helicopter?

Mr.
HARRIS. At which point?

Senator
SPECTER. At any point. At the point where Mr. Weaver was shot.

Mr.
HARRIS. No.

Senator
SPECTER. Are you sure?

Mr.
HARRIS. Positive.

Senator
SPECTER. Have you heard the testimony that there was a helicopter in
the
vicinity which was endangered at the time that Mr. Weaver sustained the
shot to
his shoulder?

Mr.
HARRIS. I heard the testimony but I never heard or saw a helicopter.

Senator
SPECTER. Could the helicopter have been there without your having seen
it at
that particular time or now being able to recollect having seen it?

Mr.
HARRIS. Not if it was close, no.

Senator
SPECTER. How badly injured were you, Mr. Harris?

Mr.
HARRIS. I, I mean I had a big hole in my arm and it went into my chest.

Senator
SPECTER. And you lay there for 9 days before you had medical care?

Mr.
HARRIS. Beside what Sara did, yes.

Senator
SPECTER. And how long did it take you to recover?

Mr.
HARRIS. Probably a couple of months, while I was in jail, 3 months.

Senator
SPECTER. Mr. Harris, I would like you to go over to the mockup and show
us
where you were at the time you fired the shot. I think it might be
useful if
the members of the subcommittee came over and took a look at it.

Herb,
Larry, why do you not come and take a look. Show us, if you will, Mr. Harris,
just where you
were at the time you saw the first man in camouflage?

Mr. HARRIS. I was walking down this trail.

Senator
SPECTER. And tell us what happened after that time?

Mr.
HARRIS. OK, I walked, we were walking down the trail, the dog and then
Sam and
then myself. And I was just walking, walking along and I was looking
down
toward the trail. I was not watching up ahead. Then I saw the dog, the
dog take
off, you know, start running faster.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Could you point to that once again?

Mr.
HARRIS. Right in here somewhere.

I
cannot tell from—I mean I was in here somewhere. I was walking down
this way.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. You went to the point of the Y.

Mr.
HARRIS. At which point, ma'am?

Senator
FEINSTEIN. You were at the point of the Y?

Mr.
HARRIS. At which point?

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Right here.

Mr.
HARRIS. I am confused.

Senator
SPECTER. Where were you? In your own way describe where you were, where
Sammy
was, where the dog was when you first walked into the area where you
were about
to see men in camouflage?

Senator
LEAHY. Describe, approximately, how far that was from the cabin?

Senator
SPECTER. Good question. How far is that, Mr. Harris?

Mr.
HARRIS. I would guess a quarter mile, something like that~. I am not
sure.
Something like that. It is quite a ways.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Could he trace the trail that he came down?

Senator
SPECTER. Trace the trail. Senator Feinstein raises a good question.
Could you
trace the trail when you left the cabin all the way down; and you
testified
about this, but make reference now to where you were so we can
understand along
this mockup.

Mr.
HARRIS. OK. When the dog was down here, down here barking up into the
woods, I
was on this rock. Randy and Sam came around the rock down on the road
and they
got down here a ways and then I came down, just down off the rock
straight down
a little path there. And walked down the road and when I got

Senator
SPECTER. Did you have any suspicion at that time that there might be
any
Federal agents in the area?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir, no. When I—Sam and Randy got down in here, and then
when I
came up to them the dog was already down onto the road and—

Senator
SPECTER. Down onto the road, where?

Mr.
HARRIS. Right in here, somewhere. Yes, here, we had some firewood up
here we
were cutting. So, it was right below that.

Senator
SPECTER. And what happened next?

Mr.
HARRIS. OK. And then there was not—I mean the dog was just kind of
sniffing
around, wagging his tail and he started to go down this road here, down
to
about this point and we followed him down and stood there. And there is
a skid
trail that goes right up through here. And when you are standing down
on the
road the skid trail goes up and then flattens out up on top.

Senator
SPECTER. Now, at some point, you suspected that there was either a dog
or a
person that Striker was barking at?

Mr. HARRIS. Right.

Senator
SPECTER. When—

Mr.
HARRIS. I thought it was game.

Senator
SPECTER. You thought it was game?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, because there was a heavi1y traveled game trail right here
that
goes all the way back over to there. And we have a garden right down in
here.
And they go down in there and eat the asparagus and stuff.

Senator
SPECTER. What happened next?

Mr.
HARRIS. OK. So there is a little shelf up here where when you are
looking up
you cannot see up there. So we decided to walk up there and see if we
could see
something cutting across that shelf in there and that is when I found the
game trail.

And
so we all three walked up there and then so, and the dog was just
walking
around kind of sniffing.

Senator
SPECTER. Now, where were you at this time?

Mr.
HARRIS. Right up here where—I do not know exactly where the game trail
was, but
it was up in here somewhere.

Senator
LEAHY. About 150 yards away?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes. That would be about right, I guess.

Senator
SPECTER. About 150 yards away, Senator Leahy asked you.

Go
ahead.

Mr. HARRIS. OK, and
then so I decided
to walk down that trail and see if we could not get a shot at
something, you
know, if a deer or something was in there. And Randy said, well, I'm
going to
go down this road.

Senator
SPECTER. Randy.

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, Mr. Weaver.

Senator
SPECTER. Go ahead.

Mr.
HARRIS. He went down this way and Sam and I walked down this—there is a
game
trail in there and we just followed the game trail. And we came out
there is—it
is not on this thingy here—but there is a road goes on up past the fern
field.
There is—this road keeps going all the way up. We came out somewhere up
in here
above the fern field.

And
I looked up the road, you know, thinking if something was trying to get
away
from us, you know, like a deer or something I could see him bounce off
up the
hill. I did not see anything so we just started walking back down the
road.

Senator
SPECTER. Which way did you walk, and what happened next?

Mr.
HARRIS. We walked down, down this trail, right down through here, down
the
road. And Weaver was coming down this way, or that is where he said he
was
going to go. So I just planned on meeting up with him and headed back
up to the
cabin. I did not know anybody was there and the dog was not, you know,
he was
not barking or trying to chase anything until we got to about somewhere
in
here. I cannot tell exactly on this.

Senator
SPECTER. Some short distance from the Y?

Mr.
HARRIS. Right.

Senator
SPECTER. And what happened?

Mr.
HARRIS. OK And then the dog kind of took off running and I just
followed, my
eyes followed the dog and there was a guy standing in the road looking
up this
way. And then the dog got up to him and was jumping around him.

Senator
SPECTER. You saw a guy?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes. That was a man.

Senator
SPECTER. That was the first time you saw the man in camouflage?

Senator
KOHL. Where was he standing here?

Mr.
HARRIS. He was standing right in here somewhere.

Senator
SPECTER. Right at the Y?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, there is a water bar right there and he was standing right
on the
other side of it.

Senator
KOHL. And where were you?

Mr.
HARRIS. Walking down this way.

Senator
KOHL. Here somewhere?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, it was not that far away.

Senator
SPECTER. Was the man in camouflage armed?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes. Well, I—when I—what I saw, what I perceived was a man in
cammy
pants and a beard and had a pistol in his hand and it looked like, just
a
pistol. And all I was seeing was the barrel of a pistol.

Senator
SPECTER. Did you not have any reason, at that point, to suspect that he
was a
law enforcement officer?

Mr.
HARRIS. At that point, all I was thinking was getting the dog off of
the—getting the dog back. He was kind of a, he is kind of a big
scary-looking
dog.

Senator
SPECTER. Well, you are thinking about getting the dog back but are you
not also
thinking something about who that person is?

Mr.
HARRIS. Well—

Senator
SPECTER. In that strange get-up?

Mr.
HARRIS. Well, in that, out there in Idaho
that is not a strange get-up. It is—in camo clothing people wear it all
the time.

Senator
SPECTER. With a stocking face mask?

Mr.
HARRIS. I did not, I did not perceive it as being a face mask. I
thought he had
a beard on. I thought it was a guy in a beard and camo.

Senator
SPECTER. So, just another man in the woods as far as youwere concerned?

Mr.
HARRIS. Right.

Senator
SPECTER. OK. What happened next?

Mr.
HARRIS. And then the dog was jumping around, jumping around him. When
we played
with the dog, you know, he would kind of push his head so he would go,
he would
nip at your hands. And that is what he was doing. He was nipping at the
guy's
hands.

And
then he kind of did a little half circle and kind of walked away from
him and
stopped. And he was looking up, up the road, looking up this way. And
me and
Sam were still walking down towards there. And then bang, the dog was
shot. And
it went down

Senator
SPECTER. Now, where were you and Sam when the dog was shot?

Mr.
HARRIS. Walking right in here.

Senator
SPECTER. And where were you facing? Were you facing the dog?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, I was looking at the dog.

Senator
SPECTER. And could you tell who shot the dog?

Mr.
HARRIS. I assumed it was that guy standing, the guy who was—and at that
point,
I figured the guy got nervous and just shot the dog because, you know,
I still
did not know who he was. I just figured he thought he was going to get
bit or
something, so he shot the dog.

Senator
SPECTER. And what happened next?

Mr.
HARRIS. OK. And then the dog kind of yelped a bit and laid down right
there.
And we walked up there and got to this point and I was standing—I got
up to Sam
and he started to turn back and he said, you shot my dog, you
son-of-a-.bitch.

And
he started to go up like this, and as he moved this way, I went off,
you know,
like at the same time. He was moving and I was moving. And as I got up
and was
looking straight toward the brush there was, that is when I saw the
puffs of
smoke and the shell casings.

Senator
SPECTER. Who shoe first?

Mr.
HARRIS. Which? Whoever shot the dog.

Senator
SPECTER. Who shot first?

Mr.
HARRIS. Whoever shot the dog.

Senator
SPECTER. Who shot next?

Mr.
HARRIS. I do not know.

Senator
SPECTER. Did Sammy shoot next?

Mr.
HARRIS. I am not sure. When I saw him, I assumed that he had started
shooting
because he pulled up his gun like this but I never saw him shoot
because I was
going this way and I looking straight up.

Senator
SPECTER. How long after that did you fire a shot?

Mr.
HARRIS. Probably just a few seconds to get from here—

Senator
SPECTER. Well, give us the sequence from when Striker was shot until
you fired
a shot.

Mr.
HARRIS. When, from when Striker was shot?

Senator
SPECTER. Yes.

Mr.
HARRIS. OK. And then we got down above Striker and Sam said, you shot
my dog.
And he started to turn towards that direction, looking into the brush.
And he
started, his rifle started to come up and then I went this way and then
there
was just the--it looked like there was people shooting all over the
place. You
know, it looked like puffs of smoke and shell casings flying. And I
kept going
and took two, maybe three steps to my right. And as I was going in the
woods,
just fired a shot into the brush.

Senator
SPECTER. You fired one shot into the bush?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And which way were you pointing?

Mr.
HARRIS. I think they even got—that was right here.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And you were facing

Mr.
HARRIS . And I just pointed that way.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. This way?

Mr.
HARRIS. Right, to where the shots were coming from.

Senator
FEINSTE1N. Where were the marshals?

Mr.
HARRIS. Where were they?

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Yes.

Mr.
HARRIS. I don't know where they were. All I know, I was shooting at
where the
smoke and the—where I saw shots being fired from.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Where did you see the first marshal?

Mr.
HARRIS. Where did I see the first marshal? Standing in the road.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. At the point of the Y.

Mr.
HARRIS. Right.

Senator
LEAHY. What were you using for a weapon?

Mr.
HARRIS. 30.06.

Senator
LEAHY. Were you carrying another weapon?

Mr.
HARRIS. I believe I probably had a sidearm, a .22 pistol.

Senator
SPECTER. Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Mr.
HARRIS. You're welcome.

Senator
SPECTER. Senator Kohl.

Senator
KOHL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr.
Chairman, it is possible that we may never know exactly what happened
at the Y
on August 21, 1992. The only thing that we can say with certainty is
that it
was a terrible tragedy, a tragedy that should never have happened.

My
own sense, Mr. Chairman, is that Sammy Weaver was shot by one of the
marshals.
It is not impossible, but in my opinion very doubtful that Randy Weaver
accidentally shot his own son. But we do know that Ruby Ridge marks a
sad
chapter in the FBI's history. Although the FBI has been essentially
unrepentant, we are beginning to get a clear picture of the errors that
they
made at Ruby Ridge.

Federal
law enforcement thought that Randy Weaver was a deadly fanatic who had
booby-trapped his compound, lived in a fortress, and fought like a
Green Beret.
Of course, Randy Weaver did have contemptible ideas, and he did
confrontational
things. But he was nowhere near as dangerous as the Federal law
enforcement
painted him to be.

Yet
with that distorted image in mind, the FBI drafted unprecedented rules
of
engagement that started snipers up a hill with a green light to shoot.
The
killing of Marshal Degan and Sammy and Vicki Weaver are clearly the
result of
these mistakes, miscommunications, and errors.

Since
then, the FBI seems to have been playing a game of duck and cover. The
world's
greatest investigative agency cannot figure out who drafted and
approved the
rules of engagement, written in part in its own headquarters. It has
consistently ignored or evaded the findings of outside independent
reviewers,
and instead it has manufactured its own reports that scapegoat some and
absolve
everyone else. So no one on this panel is letting the FBI off the hook.
That
has been abundantly clear.

But
while neither the Weaver family nor you, Mr. Harris, deserve what
happened to
you, you do not either deserve any credit. There was no honor in what
you did.
Clearly, you were victims, but you are not heroes Mr. Harris, we are
not here
to attach you~, but we are not here either to contribute to any
mythology that
would make you and Mr. Weaver role models. Randy Weaver really has to
shoulder
much of

the
responsibility for what happened up there. He hid from the law. He
obsessed
with his own irrational fears about Government. And he put a gun in the
hands
of his own 14-year-old, Sammy, and he contributed to filling Sammy's
head with
extreme rhetoric about law enforcement officers and hate.

Mr.
Weaver was a fugitive from justice, and you were up there on that hill
with a
fugitive, a man wanted by the law. You contributed to the problem,
running
around with a gun, and seconding all of Mr. Weaver's unfounded fears.
This is
particularly ironic because you in your own statement say at the end
that you
felt that if you were to survive, you would be given a meaningless
trial in a
kangaroo court and then sent off to prison for the rest of your life or
even
executed. But after all you have been through, you say, "I am truly
thankful for the court system that we have in this country. In many
other
countries," you say, "in the world, just the word of the deputy
marshals would have been all it took to put me away forever, or worse.
But the
court system in the United
States worked. It presumed me
innocent,
appointed lawyers to represent me, and gave me a fair trial with a
jury, and
the jury then acquitted me."

That
is your own statement. This is your statement.

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
KOHL. So the question I ask you, first of all, Mr. Harris, is whether,
in fact,
all those conceptions that you had and Mr. Weaver had which contributed
greatly
to the tragedy turned out now in your own mind, as you have seen the
court
system unfold in this country, to have been plain, flat-out untrue. Mr.
Harris?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
KOHL. So is it also fair to say that if Mr. Weaver had come down off
his
mountain to answer the law summons and go to court, we never would have
had any
of this occurring?

Mr.
HARmS. That's correct.

Senator
KOHL. Should he have done that?

Mr.
HARRIS. I believe so, yes.

Senator
KOHL. Did you encourage him to do that?

Mr.
HARRIS.. At the time, no.

Senator
KOHL. Why not?

Mr.
HARRIS. I—he just—I wasn't around at the time that they made the—they
as a
family made their decision. I just—the reason I was going up there, I
made sure
that there was—you know, the family had the things that they needed. I
just
didn't

Senator
KOHL. Well, but you were, you know, on and off part of that family for,
what, 9
or 10 years, and you sat around and talked with them on many, many
different
occasions, and clearly what was unfolding was a part of all that
conversation.

Could
you be little bit more illustrative of your role in having, as you say,
never
encouraged him to come down off his mountain and face he summons? Or is
that
not exactly the case? You must have heard him say on many occasions, I
won't, I
can't, I don't want to, they won't take me. These are things that have
been
clearly depicted out there, and you were part of that discussion.

I
am assuming—or is it incorrect to say that you yourself were not there
in any
way to encourage him to come off the mountain to face his summons? You
didn't,
or you did? Or what?

Mr.
HARRIS. I remember it, when I went up there, they just said that—they
told me
what had happened with their fear, why they were afraid of it, and they
said
that Weaver wasn't going to go down, and I never questioned it or I
never tried
to talk him in or out of it. It was just—

Senator
KOHL. Well, now, you come across as a person with convictions and
thoughts and
feelings. You are clearly not a person whose mind doesn't work. Your
mind works
very well. Why would you not have seen it as part of your interaction
with the
family to have an opinion on that? I mean, you wouldn't ask us to
believe that
you had no opinion on this whole thing?

Mr.
HARRIS. I had opinions, but—

Senator
KOHL. What was your opinion?

Mr.
HARRIS. What was it?

Senator
KOHL. Yes.

Mr.
HARRIS. I could see their—I read—or they told me what the situation was
with
the failure to appear, and I—myself, I would have gone down and tried
to fight
it in court. But I usually keep my opinions to myself. I never told him
that I
thought that he should go down or he should stay or—either way. I just
listened.

Senator
KOHL. All right. I don't know as we have clearly established who shot
Degan or
whether you took a shot at Degan, and we have gone back and forth on
that
several times, prior to your being here and then this morning. And I
think I
heard you say to Senator Specter, I didn't particularly shoot at
anybody. But I
think you also told television, ABC News, that you probably did kill
Marshal
Degan, and—.

Mr.
HARRIS. They asked me if

Senator
KOHL. Is that right? It is your assumption that you did kill Marshal
Degan?

Mr.
HARRIS. I would have to assume that, yeah, from what I heard in court
and—yeah,
I'd have to assume that.

Senator
KOHL. All right. Mr. Harris. is it permissible for society to function
if, when
people disagree with the law, they just ignore it?

Mr.
HARRIS. No.

Senator
KOHL. Is society able to function that way?

Mr.
HARRIS. No.

Senator
KOHL. No.

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
KOHL. Is it pretty clear in your mind now that the way our law and our
system
unfolds, for the most part people are treated fairly and justifiably in
our
society?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir

Senator
KOHL. Would you advise most everybody you know, if not everybody you
know, that
you cannot take the law, as they say, into your own hands and simply
ignore it?

Mr.
HARRIS. Oh, yeah. Yes, sir.

Senator
KOHL. OK. Is this different from what you thought several years ago?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir, it is.

Senator
KOHL. So if you had an opportunity to stand up in front of anybody and
any
group of people—and as you know, there are people in our society today
who just
don't believe in the Government, don't believe in our law, don't
believe in our
system, and

really
want to set up their own law and their own system, you would suggest to
them
that that is not the way this country functions or can function? Or
would You
say it in your way? What would you say?

Mr.
HARRIS. Oh, I agree with you. It wouldn't be able to function that way.

Senator
KOHL. Is it also true that you yourself have sued the U.S. Government?
Or
didn't I hear that correctly somewhere?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes.

Senator
KOHL. You have a lawsuit pending?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
KOHL. For how much money is it, Mr. Harris?

Mr.
NEVIN. Senator, I think the complaint prays for $10 million.

Senator
KOHL. $10 million.

Mr.
NEVIN. Yes, sir.

Senator
KOHL. So you are hopeful that the law enforcement systerm in this
country will
work in your favor and award you $10 million?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
KOHL. All right. Well, I thank you, Mr. Harris. It is good to see you
here this
morning, and I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator
SPECTER. Thank you very much, Senator Kohl.

Senator
Thompson.

Senator
THOMPSON. I won't ask counsel whether or not he really expects
to get $10
million, but I am sure he expects to get what he feels like he is
entitled to.

Mr.
Harris, what did Randy Weaver tell you about the gun charges against
him and
why he was failing to appear?

Mr.
HARRIS. With respect to the gun charges, he told me that this guy, Gus
Magisano, or whoever he is, talked him into sawing off some shotguns
and making
them and selling them to him. And then he told me on the failure to
appear, you
know, he told me that he went down there and the judge told him that if
he went
to court and lost that he would lose his bond. I think he put up his
property
as a bond or something. That's the only collateral he had. So if he
went to
court and lost his case, that he would lose his property. And then the
other—the things about sending him—sending him a letter saying that the
date
was changed to March 20 and it wasn't. It was February 20 or—I don't
know if I
have the dates right, but something to that effect.

Senator
THOMPSON. What was the significance in your mind of the fact they gave
him the
wrong date to appear?

Mr.
HARRIS. He just—he figured they were just trying to railroad him.

Senator
THOMPSON. Well, what

Mr.
HARRIS. Because he wouldn't snitch for them.

Senator
THOMPSON. Did you have any experiences yourself that would cause you to
believe
that he might have been right? Did you have an opinion at that time as
to
whether or not he was right in not coming down?

Mr.
HARRIS. Could you repeat that, please?

Senator
THOMPSON. Well, I was wondering how that affected you when he told you
that the
reason he was not coming down and sub-

mitting
himself to arrest was because they were trying to railroad him, or
words to
that effect?

Mr.
HARRIS. Right.

Senator
THOMPSON. I mean, did you believe him? Did you think his analysis was
correct?

Mr.
HARRIS. I thought it was a possibility from what he had shown me and
what he
told me.

Senator
THOMPSON. Did you feel or did Randy feel or did Vicki feel at that time
that
they were being surrounded by marshals or that marshals or anyone was
approaching their cabin or anywhere around the cabin?

Mr.
HARRIS. No. I—not that I know of.

Senator
THOMPSON. Was there ever any discussion about the possibility that they
may be
coming to get me at any moment and they could be out in the woods right
now, or
anything like that?

Mr.
HARRIS. No one ever discussed it. I actually never—I never thought that
they
would come up there like that.

Senator
THOMPSON. And you say when you went to follow the dog, of course, that
is a
long stretch of road down there, and you point out you were vulnerable
if
anybody had been out there wanting to take a shot at you at that time,
you
certainly were vulnerable walking down there to find out what the
racket was
about, weren't you?

Mr.
HARRIS. Right, yes.

Senator
THOMPSON. Well, let me ask you this: After Sam was shot and you went
back to
the cabin, that was the morning of the 21st.

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
THOMPSON. Between that time and the time that you were shot, what was
the
discussion about turning yourself in? What was the conversation inside
the
cabin? Obviously they were distraught over the boy being shot. But was
there
any additional as to whether we should turn ourselves in, why we are
not going
to turn ourselves in, what we ought to do?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, not with me. I don't know if Randy and Vicki and the kids,
if they
discussed that or not. I spent most of the night that night by myself.
And I
didn't—I don't remember having much conversation at all.

Senator
THOMPSON. I thought I heard you say that after Sam was shot and he was
out in
the shed, and right before Randy was shot, you went out to the rocks
and you
were looking around out there for a period of time?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah, we were out on the rocks.

Senator
THOMPSON. We? You or— Mr. HARRIS. We all three went out to the rock,
and then
there's a path that goes—instead of going back down to the driveway,
you can go
straight over to the shed there.

Senator
THOMPSON. Why were you at the rocks there?

Mr.
HARRIS. Sir, the dog was whining, and, you know, they get wrapped up in
the
chain. You know, they get wrapped around a tree, and they whine because
they
can't move or something. It was that kind of a—she wanted to check on
him, and
Sam had some— he had a little box out there of stuff and there was a
battery in
there I was going to get for a flashlight, a little penlight.

Senator
THOMPSON. Didn't you think you might have been in some danger by going
out
there after having had the gunfight?

Mr.
HARRIS. I never once even—no way could I imagine that— you know, that
they
would just start shooting.

Senator
THOMPSON. It didn't occur to you even then that you were being observed?

Mr.
HARRIS. No.

Senator
THOMPSON. Where were you at the moment that Randy was shot there at the
shed?

Mr.
HARRIS. I was still over on the rocks.

Senator
THOMPSON. What were you doing at the precise moment that he was shot,
as best
you remember?

Mr.
HARRIS. Right when he got shot, I was—I just got done with what I was
doing
over there. I got my battery, and I was just— I just stood up and was
just
walking toward the shed.

Senator
THOMPSON. How far away were you from the shed at that time?

Mr.
HARRIS. I'd say 50 feet or so. I really don't know.

Senator
THOMPSON. Did you have your rifle with you?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
THOMPSON. Where is the latch on the shed door located?

Mr.
HARRIS. It's kind of like—well, for me it would be right about where my
head
is, and it's just a piece of—a little piece of wood nailed in there. It
turns
sideways so it won't let the door come open. You just turn it, and the
door
will open.

Senator
THOMPSON. At the moment of the shot, where was your rifle? Was it in
your
hands?

Mr.
HARRIS. Right. It would have been in my right hand.

Senator
THOMPSON. Were you aiming it in any particular direction?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
THOMPSON. You say your right hand. Were you carrying it at your side?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah, down at my side, in my right hand.

Senator
THOMPSON. You didn't hear a helicopter at that time?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
THOMPSON. Did you hear a helicopter at any time prior to that?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
THOMPSON. Any time after that?

Mr.
HARRIS. I don't know if we heard one that evening or not. I don't
recall.

Senator
THOMPSON. At some time do you recall a helicopter being in the area?

Mr.
HARRIS. Later that day, you mean?

Senator
THOMPSON. Well, at any time.

Mr.
HARRIS. Oh. Oh, yeah. Well, during the—in the next 9 days or so, yeah,
there
was helicopters all the time flying around.

Senator
THOMPSON. After Vicki was shot?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah.

Senator
THOMPSON. Getting to that point, you all ran back to the house.

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
THOMPSON. There was some testimony that when you ar­rived at the
doorway, you
may have stopped momentarily at the door and looked back. Is that true?

Mr.
HARRIS. I know I didn't look back, but I did—when Randy and Sara got to
the
door, they kind of slowed-—you know, they slowed down to go through the
door,
and I was—I had to kind of slow—I slowed way down so I just wouldn't
run over
them. And I know I wasn't looking back because I was looking at Vicki.

Senator
THOMPSON. Had the Weavers made any preparations for a standoff in terms
of
supplies or fortifications or anything of that nature?

Mr.
HARRIS. Not until after Vicki was shot. Then I think they filled up
water jugs.

Senator
THOMPSON. I am sure that you are aware of the reputa­tion that
Randy and Vicki
had developed with law enforcement au­thorities. Do you feel that
Randy was a
dangerous person?

Mr.
HARRIS. I don't feel that, no.

Senator
THOMPSON. Do you have any opinion as to how he de­rived this
dangerous
reputation? Did you hear him talk about re­sistance? Did you hear
him talk
about shooting law enforcement officers or taking them with him or
anything of
that nature?

Mr.
HARRIS. No.

Senator
THOMPSON. You were aware of his opinions.

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
THOMPSON. I am sure, his religious opinions and his opinions about the
Government and things of that nature?

Mr.
HARRIS. Right.

Senator
THOMPSON. And that he was not—he knew that there was a warrant for his
arrest,
and yet he was not submitting him­self to that.

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, Sir.

Senator
THOMPSON. You have known him for a period of years, and you have heard
testimony, I am sure, about various people who said he's made comments
over the
years about resisting and all of that. You never heard him make any
comments
like that ever over a period of years?

Mr.
HARRIS. Not with—not in that context. In The context of, you know, if
everything falls

apart,
you know, there's no Government or anything, like Armageddon kind of
thing.In that context, I—

Senator
THOMPSON. You never heard of that? You never heard him talk in those
terms?

Mr.
HARRIS. Oh, yes . Yes, that's the context I did hear—

Senator
THOMPSON. Those are the contexts—

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah, right.

Senator
THOMPSON. Are you familiar with the letters that Vicki wrote?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
THOMPSON. Is that the way she talked? Did she share Randy's beliefs in
that
regard?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes.

Senator
THOMPSON. Was she encouraging him not to submit to law enforcement
authorities?

Mr.
HARRIS. I think they made the decision together. I don't know if she
encouraged
it or—like I said, I wasn't around when

this—that
part happened. I was in Spokane
or somewhere, so I don't know.

Senator
THOMPSON. The question has arisen as to when the au­thorities knew
of Sam's
death. You testified that when you came back down to get Sam's body
that you
were in clear view. Do you know whether or not law enforcement officers
saw you
take Sam off at that point?

Mr.
HARRIS. Well, I didn't actually—wasn't there when they went and got
Sam. I went
down—I went down right after—I took off from where I was, circled
around and
came back down and checked to make sure he wasn't—or checked to see if
he was
dead or not. And then I went up and told Randy and Vicki, and they went
down,
back down to the Y and got him and brought him up to the lower garden.
And then
I went down and helped them take him the rest of the way up.

Senator
THOMPSON. What about from that point, from the time he was shot that
night, you
said the girls were crying, I believe.

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah.

Senator
THOMPSON. Were there any shouts or anything that was audible, any
statements
made, anything directed at what officers might be in the area or
anything of
that nature? Is there any reason to believe that the officers knew or
did not
know that Sammy Weaver had been shot and killed?

Mr.
HARRIS. Other than—I never heard anything, no.

Senator
THOMPSON. So do you have an opinion about it?

Mr.
HARRIS. Oh, I guess I misunderstand you.

Senator
THOMPSON. OK.

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah, when Vicki and Randy went down there, they were—I could
hear them
from where I was. I could hear them scream, Vicki screaming and wailing
and
Randy yelling and shout­ing from where I was up at the cabin. I was
on the
rocks with the girls.

Senator
THOMPSON, Mr. Chairman, I believe that is all I have. Thank you.

Senator
SPECTER. Thanks very much, Senator Thompson.

Senator
Leahy.

Senator
LEAHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let
me make sure. We have gone over this before, but I want to make sure
absolutely
what kind of weapon everybody was carrying. You mentioned this before.
Tell us
again. What were you carrying?

Mr.
HARRIS. I was carrying ~ Remington-or a 30.06 rifle. Arid—

Senator
LEAHY. A pump bolt lever?

Mr.
HARRIS. A bolt action.

Senator
LEAHY. Bolt action.

Mr.
HARRIS. And I believe I was wearing a .22 pistol in a holster.

Senator
LEAHY. And Sam?

Mr.
HARRIS. He would have had a .357 pistol and a mini-14 .223.

Senator
LEAHY. Did he normally carry a .357? I mean, they de­scribed him as
a pretty
tiny-------

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah, it was—I think he bought that pistol. It was his, I think.

Senator
LEAHY. And Randy Weaver?

Mr.
HARRIS. He would have been carrying a double-barrel shot­gun and a
9-millimeter
pistol.

Senator
LEAHY. Do you know what kind of a load he had in the 9-millimeter?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir, I don't.

Senator
LEAHY. Were they jacketed bullets?

Mr.
HARRIS. I don't know.

Senator
LEAHY. Semiautomatic, though?

Mr.
HARRIS. Right, yes.

Senator
LEAHY. So in all likelihood, jacketed?

Mr.
HARRIS. I don't know.

Senator
LEAHY. OK. You described for us what happened when the shooting
occurred of the
dog and the other shooting. It was all in a fairly short period of
time. Is
that correct?

Mr.
HARRIS. Right, yeah.

Senator
LEAHY. And do you know where Randy was standing? I mean, did you have
any sight
of him at all during that time?

Mr.
HARRIS. When I was down at the Y, I never saw him. I heard him calling
for Sam
and me to come up there, but I never saw him.

Senator
LEAHY. When you heard him call, were you able to judge by the sound of
his
voice how far away he was?

Mr.
HARRIS. Not how far, because the sound's weird in the moun­tains
there. But I
could tell he was up behind us.

Senator
LEAHY. You couldn't tell whether he was close or far?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, I wouldn't have been able to tell.

Senator
LEAHY. But certainly close enough you could hear him?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes.

Senator
LEAHY. Now, the marshals have testified that the 19 rounds of
ammunition, just
the shell casings that they recovered from the Y, don't reflect the
total
amount of gunfire there. Do you agree with the marshals on that?

Mr.
HARRIS. I don't know.

Senator
LEAHY. Do you have any feeling yourself how many rounds were fired?

Mr.
HARRIS. It seemed like there was a lot more fire coming to­wards me
than what
was there, but other than that, I don't know.

Senator
LEAHY. Whether it was 19 or 10 or 30, you have no idea?

Mr.
HARRIS. No.

Senator
LEAHY. Randy Weaver testified that he shot off a bunch of rounds after
he heard
shots at the Y. Did you hear those shots?

Mr.
HARRIS. I wouldn't have—I couldn't have distinguished which shots came
from
where. It was all pretty much, you know, all together in my hearing. I
mean, I—

Senator
LEAHY. If he fired the shotgun, that would have a pretty distinctive
sound as
compared to the other weapons that were being fired, would it not?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah

Senator
LEAHY. Did you hear a shotgun?

Mr.
HARRIS. I don't remember hearing any—no. I couldn't have told the
difference
between them.

Senator
LEAHY. You would not have been able to tell the dif­ference whether
he was
firing his 9-millimeter pistol?

Mr.
HARRIS. No.

Senator
LEAHY. If he did fire, as he testified, a series of rounds after he
heard shots
a the Y and after he found Sammy had been shot, could the marshals have
thought
those were shots directed at them?

Mr.
HARRIS. I don't think I understand.

Senator
LEAHY. Well, Mr. Weaver has testified that he fired off a series of
rounds. Is
there any way that the marshalls who were there, because of where Mr.
Weaver
was located, would have thought those were shots fired at them?

Mr.
HARRIS. Oh, OK, I understand. Yeah, they could have. Yeah.

Senator
LEAHY. You were not there when they went back to pick up Sam?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, I wasn't.

Senator
LEAIW. But you had gone over to check Sam?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, before I came back up.

Senator
LEAHY. And it was clear to you he was dead?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
LEAHY. And where was his rifle?

Mr.
HARRIS. Laying beside him.

Senator
LEAHY. And had it been fired?

Mr.
HARRIS. I didn't check.

Senator
LEAHY. And when they picked up Sam, did they pick up the rifle, too?

Mr.
HARRIS. I believe so, yes.

Senator
LEAHY. Do you know whether anybody ever checked to see whether the
rifle had
been fired or rounds missing or anything else?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, I don't—I don't think so.

Senator
LEAHY. And you fired how many shots?

Mr.
HARRIS. From—I only remember firing twice, but I guess they found 3
shell
casings from my rifle.

Senator
LEAHY. That was from your 30.06?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
LEAHY. This follows up a little bit on what Senator Thompson had asked.
You
know, Randy Weaver knew that he had been in court; he knew he was going
to have
to go back to court at some time. Is that correct?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes.

Senator
LEAHY. This was before the shooting.

Mr.
HARRIS. Oh, OK Yes.

Senator
LEAHY. Did he ever talk about what he would do if some­body just
drove up to
the door and said, hey, Weaver, you're over­due for court, let's go?

Mr.
HARRIS. The only thing I can remember him saying about it is he was
up—I
can't--somebody was up there, and he was talking to him, and he said if
one of
them came up there and wanted to sit down and have coffee with him,
that he'd
sit down and have cof­fee and discuss it. But that's the only thing
I remember.

Senator
LEAHY. But did he say whether he would go with them?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, he—I don't remember him saying.

Senator
LEAHY. Did he ever indicate that he wouldn't go, that he would fight
rather
than go?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, I don't think so. No.

Senator
LEAHY. But there was never any direct discussion, with him saying:
"under
these circumstances I will leave, I will go back to court?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
LEAHY. Were there any specific plans if anybody tried to arrest him at
the
cabin what he would do.

Mr.
HARRIS. No, not that I know of.

Senator
LEARY. Nothing discussed with you?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
LEAHY. Did he ask you to become involved in any way in his court matter?

Mr.
HARRIS. in his court matter?

Senator
LEAHY. Well, the initial court—

Mr.
HARRIS. Oh, no, sir.

Senator
LEAHY. It's interesting because when Randy Weaver testified, he said
that if he
could do it over again, he would have appeared in court in 1991 on his
original
gun charge. But you had no sense of that kind of discussion
during—prior to the
shooting we've described here?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
LEAHY. The Marshals Service had set up two video surveillance cameras
that were
focused on the Weaver cabin in April and May of 1992. Did you know
about those
cameras?

Mr.
HARRIS. I knew about one of them.

Senator
LEAHY. How did you know that?

Mr.
HARRIS. Sara took a walk up the mountain one day and found them—found
it, one
of them.

Senator
LEAHY. Found one?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah, there——yeah. We didn't know about the other one.

Senator
LEAHY Did you do Anything with the one you found?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes. Sam and I went up and dismantled it and put it in boxes
and put it
in the shed.

Senator
LEAHY. You just took it down?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes.

Senator
LEAHY. Was any discussion made because of these cameras that the
marshals were
coming close or somebody's coming close to the time of arresting Randy
Weaver?

Mr.
HARRIS. I don't remember any discussions, but I remember thinking that,
you
know, that might deter him from—like they really didn’t want to come
around, so
they put up a camera in­stead, and then the camera was gone so
maybe they
wouldn't— they'd just wait until Weaver came down off the mountain.

Senator
LEAHY. Did you assume they put up another camera?

Mr.
HARRIS. No—no, I never—.

Senator
LEAHY. Did you take any precautions or act accordingly because a camera
might
be there?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
LEAHY. Let's go to the time of the actual shooting where you were shot
and Ms.
Weaver was shot. You've seen the door here, and I assume that pretty
much looks
like the door did the day of the shooting?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
LEAHY. Same kind of curtains?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
LEAHY. Do you know whether the curtains were open or closed?

Mr.
HARRIS. I would assume they were open.

Senator
LEAHY. Why would you assume that, Mr. Harris?

Mr.
HARRIS. I don't ever remember seeing them closed until we were in there
the 9
days.

Senator
LEAHY. Was this a cabin with a lot of light in it?

Mr.
HARRIS. I don't understand.

Senator
LEAHY. Is this a cabin with a lot of windows, a lot of light coming
into the
cabin, or was it a fairly dark cabin?

Mr.
HARRIS. It was fairly light. I think.

Senator
LEAHY. And it was your recollection that the curtains were normally
open?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, air.

Senator
LEAHY. Did you hear any of the testimony of the people who were
involved in the
surveillance, the sharpshooters who testi­fied here in these
hearings?

Mr.
HARRIS.Just sort of it, but not very
much.

Senator
LEAHY. Well, part of the testimony was that because of the overhang of
the
cabin, that from the positions the sharp­shooters were in, a couple
hundred
yards away, that they thought it was a solid door. They didn't realize
there
was a window in the door. Does that make sense to you?

Senator
LEAHY. If you were standing about level where they were, would you have
a good
view of that door?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah, I believe so, yes.

Senator
LEAHY. Would you be able to tell that there was a win­dow in the
door, or would
the overhang of the shed block that view?

Mr.
HARRIS. I think you could—I think you’d be able to see it. I've never
been over
there and looked, though.

Senator
LEAHY. But you were familiar with the door, anyway, so you know there
is a
window.

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah, right.

Senator
LEAHY. Did Randy Weaver ever discuss with you selling guns as a way to
make
extra money?

Mr.
HARRIS. Not—well, he told—I found out about the shotgun deal after the
fact. He
told me about it. But he never— not before that, no.

Senator
LEAHY. I mean, after the fact, how long after the fact?

Mr.
HARRIS. After he had been arrested.

Senator
LEAHY. But before the standoff that we've discussed and after he was
arrested.—

Mr.
HARRIS. Oh, right.

Senator
LEAHY. After he was arrested, but before the shootings?

Mr.
HARRIS. Right.

Senator
LEAHY. And what was the nature of that discussion?

Mr.
HARRIS. He just told me that he—that this guy Magisano had come up to
him and
offered him money to saw off some shot guns, and he said he needed the
money,
so he did it.

Senator
LEAHY. Did he talk about making more?

Mr.
HARRIS. Not to me, he didn't, no.

Senator
LEAHY. Did he talk to you about whether you might want to be involved
in this?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir. I wasn't living up there at the time or wasn't around.

Senator
LEAHY. Did he say how many shotguns he sold to him?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah. He said he sold two.

Senator
LEAHY. Did he have any material there or appear to be making any more
sawed-off
shotguns?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
LEAHY. Did you ever see him make a sawed off shotgun?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
LEAHY. And he never talked about selling more?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir, he didn't.

Senator
LEAHY. To that informant or to anybody else?

Mr.
HARRIS. I don't know if he did to that informant or not. I—

Senator
LEAHY. No. My question, Mr. Harris: Did he ever talk about selling
sawed-off
shotguns to anybody other than this one individual?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
LEAHY. You had heard dogs bark before August 21 before there had been
any shots
fired, had you not?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
LEAHY. Did that indicate to you that people might be around, or was it
just a
common occurrence?

Mr.
HARRIS. It happened all the time They barked at all kinds of things.

Senator
LEAHY. Did you have a lot of game in the woods around there?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
LEAHY. What kind of game?

Mr.
HARRIS. Pretty much there's bear, like 3 weeks or a month before, a
moose ran
right—me and Sara were sitting out on the back porch, and here goes a
moose
right by the back porch and up the mountain, and the dogs were right on
their
tail. And there's bear and elk and there's cougar and bobcat, and all
kinds—

Senator
LEAHY. Would that get the dogs going?

Mr.
HARRIS. If they were in the area, yes.

Senator
LEAHY. Now, Deputy Marshall Cooper and Roderick who were at the
shootout on
August 21 testified later on September 15, 1992, that you and Randy
Weaver were
trying to ambush them at the Y and that you were "using a maneuver like
someone hunting rabbits." Is that correct that you and Randy Weaver
were
trying to ambush the people you might have been chasing at Ruby Ridge?

Mr.
HARRIS. I don't know if you—how much hunting you've done, but a lot of
times if
you got an area where you want to—

Senator
LEAHY. I've done my share.

Mr.
HARRIS. OK, so you understand that if you want to—if you're going to
walk down
one road, you have the possibility of having something running away
from you
and you don't see it. So if you

have
somebody over here—we call it bird-dogging. But, I mean, I never—I
didn't mean
to do that with a person. It was—if a deer bounced off down through
there, took
that way instead of the way we were going up the trail, then Randy
would have
been able to get a shot at it.

Senator
LEAHY. Mr. Chairman, can I ask just one more question?

Senator
SPECTER. Yes.

Senator
LEAHY. Randy Weaver testified that the body of Sammy appeared to have
been
moved. What do you make of a~1 that? And do you believe it was? I
realize you
weren't with him when he went back up, but— Mr. HARRIS. Right. I don't
know.
When I left Sam down there, I had rolled him over on his back so I
could check
hi8 pulse and see his wounds, and I guess Randy says when he got there,
he was
laying on his stomach.

Senator
LEAHY. And he was dead when you left him?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
LEAHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator
SPECTER. Thank you very much, Senator Leahy.

Senator
Abraham.

Senator
ABRAHAM. Thanks.

Mr.
Harris, as I read your testimony and to the extent I have been able to
be
here—I've got a simultaneous committee meeting going on which I
apologize for
having to go back and forth—it is my understanding you came down with
Sammy
Weaver; the dog was with you; you saw the man with the pistol. A dog
went over
by the man with the pistol. Then at that point was he—or did he kind of
come
back away from that man and then was shot? Is that what happened?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah. He kind of turned in a circle and was facing back up
toward—back
up the hill when he was shot.

Senator
ABRAHAM. All right.

Mr.
HARRIS. I guess back up towards the cabin.

Senator
ABRAHAM. Right. But he had gone up to the guy with the pistol. That
wasn't the
person who shot him. The dog moved away from there, and then he was
shot. You
are not sure who shot him, but at that point—

Mr.
HARRIS. Right. I assumed that it was a man in the—

Senator
ABRAHAM. So that was shot No. 1, at the dog.

Mr.
HARRIS. Right.

Senator
ABRAHAM. Then you say Sammy Weaver took his gun and sort of began
yelling,
"You shot my dog," brandished his weapon. At this point you begin to
take cover. Is that

Mr.
HARRIS. Well, I wouldn't use the word "brandished." He—I don't—all I
saw was he said, "You shot my dog," and then he start­ed to turn up
this way and look in the direction of where the guy went, and he was
bringing
his rifle up with him like this, and then I went—as he was doing ~ at,
I was
moving at the same time head­ed the other direction.

Senator
ABRAHAM. OK. And you say it was at that point that you heard shots, you
didn't
see who shot them, who fired them.

Mr.
HARRIS. I didn't see who was shooting them, but I saw shell casing. I
remember
seeing shell casing lying around, and the smoke, puffs of smoke.

Senator
ABRAHAM. But you were kind of moving out of——

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah, I was—yeah, right.

Senator
ABRAHAM. You never saw Sam again, right? I mean, you just took cover.
Is that
what happened?

Mr.
HARRIS. Right.

Senator
ABRAHAM. And he went in another direction up into the brush. Is that
what
happened? Or we don't~—you don't know?

Mr.
HARRIS. I didn't see where he went.

Senator
ABRAHAM. But you testified here that apparently where the casings
connected to
his weapon were found was not at that point where the dog was, but some
distance—so that—does that I guess what I'm getting to, then it is your
belief
that the flurry of shots that you heard as you were taking cover also
came from
the marshals?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah, that's where I believe they're coming from.

Senator
ABRAHAM. So Sam did not shoot at that point because there were no
casings—unless the casing were moved somehow by somebody.

Mr.
HARRIS. Right.

Senator
ABRAHAM. And you don't know that, obviously.

Mr.
HARRIS. No.

Senator
ABRAHAM. So it is your testimony that the marshals shot at the dog and
then
shot at Sammy Weaver at that spot. That is your belief as to what
happened?

Mr.
HARRIS. Right, and myself.

Senator
ABRAHAM. But Sammy didn't fall at that spot, right?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir, he didn't.

Senator
ABRAHAM. During the time that you and Randy Weaver were engaged in
being up
there over the years in your visits and so on, we have heard a lot of
comments
from people who purported to know him or did know him or knew of him.
Many of
them seem to me to be descriptions of somebody who was quite hostile,
to say
the least, to Government agents, Federal Government agents and so on.
Had you
heard him make hostile comments about such people?

Mr.
HARRIS. Not about certain agents or anything, but—

Senator
ABRAHAM. Not individuals. I just mean about the Federal Government or
people
from—

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah. Weaver, he would—he likes to talk, so he— I never took
Weaver for
hostile, though.

Senator
ABRAHAM. Would you say he was a big talker, then? He was just kind of
more bark
than bite? Is that—

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
ABRAHAM. [continuing] How you would characterize Randy Weaver?

But
did he—were you ever with him when there were ever any confrontations
with
anybody, neighbors, people on the property who shouldn't have been
there, et
cetera?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
ABRAHAM. Never?

Mr.
HARRIS. Uh-uh.

Senator
ABRAHAM. Did you ever hear about any?

Mr.
HARRIS. I heard about once with some—WilhoIly? Sam WiIholly. He told me
that
Wilholly was mad at him about some

thing.
I can't remember, but that WiIhoIly said that he was going to do bad
things to
Weaver. I can't remember what he said, but I think that's the only one
I
recall.

Senator
ABRAHAM. OK. So you never—did you ever have a dis­cussion with
Randy Weaver
with respect to what would happen if Federal agents were on his
property?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
ABRAHAM. How about trespassers, anybody?

Mr.
HARRIS. No.

Senator
ABRAHAM. Never, in all the time you were up there, the many, many
visits?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, he never said he would do anything to anybody.

Senator
ABRAHAM. All right. So I guess my next question is this:

When
you came down into the bird-dogging maneuver, I guess you called it,
given the
way you were proceeding, would a person rather than an animal have
possibly
been able to draw the conclusion that that maneuver, if it was going
on, was
intended to flush them out, cause them to—

Mr.
HARRIS. I imagine.

Senator
ABRAHAM. If you had been down here and you had seen two guys coming or
had the
sense that there were people coming one way and people coming the
other, you
might have reached that conclusion that you were the target of—

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
ABRAHAM. Did it ever occur to you that it might be a person when you
were doing
this?

Mr.
HARRIS. No.

Senator
ABRAHAM. Had you ever seen people up in this area before when you were
visiting?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
ABRAHAM. I guess my question is this: Given that you feel that it would
have
been possible to certainly feel you were a target if this maneuver was
going
on, when you saw a person dressed in the camouflage with a pistol, what
did you
think? What thoughts went through your head at that point? Were you
worried?
What were you feeling?

Mr.
HARRIS. I was—all I remember thinking about was trying to et the dog
off the
guy, because the dog was going for his hands.

I
could tell that he was just trying to play with him, but, you know,
with that
kind of a dog, if you don't know the dog, you would have thought he was
going
to bite you. So my first.—that's the wily thing I remember thinking, is
getting
that dog, you, know, getting him away from that guy.

Senator
ABRAHAM. So you never—you didn't sense you were in any danger at that
point—
Mr. HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
ABRAHAM [continuing]. Or that that person with a pistol—I mean, in this
remote
area you come upon guy with a pistol and—

Mr.
HARRIS. Well, it wasn't Weaver's property.

Senator
ABRAHAM. Was that unusual?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah, it—-

Senator
ABRAHAM. That part was beyond Weavers property?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah, it wasn't Weaver's property.

Senator
ABRAHAM. When you went out on the day that you were shot, we heard
testimony at
there had been a helicopter in the vicinity. Was there ever a
helicopter that
day in the vicinity that you recall?

Mr.
HARRIS. No.

Senator
ABRAHAM. Never?

Mr.
HARRIS. Not that I recall.

Senator
ABRAHAM. So when you went outside, it had not even any relationship
either to
an existing helicopter or anything that had happened prior to that at 6
o'clock
that evening?

Mr.
HARRIS. Nothing, no

Senator
ABRAHAM. And did you have Randy Weaver in your field of vision at the
point
when he was shot?

Mr.
HARRIS. Say that--—--

Senator
ABRARAM. Could you see Randy when he was shot, or was he hidden by the
shed?

Mr.
HARRIS. No. I could see him.

Senator
ABRAHAM. And what was he doing?

Mr.
HARRIS. He was opening the door.

Senator
ABRAHAM. And where was his gun?

Mr.
HARRIS. In his left hand.

Senator
ABRAHAM. In what position?

Mr.
HARRIS. Holding the top of the stock. You know, the stock.

Senator
ABRAHAM. He was holding it in the air and he was opening a door.

Mr.
HARRIS. Right. He was reaching up like this to open the latch.

Senator
ABRAHAM. Was there any way you could view his position or the
positioning of
the gun as posing any kind of effort to shoot at anything? Could you
have shot
the gun in that position?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
ABRAHAM. It would have taken changing completely the—

Mr.
HARRIS. Right.

Senator
ABRAHAM. And then he was shot, and then you began running to the house.
When
you were running to the house, all three of you had weapons. Correct?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
ABRAHAM. And you could see Sara Weaver and Randy Weaver ahead of you,
right?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
ABRAHAM. Did any of you have the gun in a shooting position, the guns
you were
in a shooting position as you were heading into the house?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
ABRAHAM. Your guns were whatever position you held them in to run. Is
that
correct?

Mr.
HARRIS. Right.

Senator
ABRAHAM. There was no way you could have fired a shot

Mr.
HARRIS. No. No, sir.

Senator
ABRAHAM. It could be fairly said you were headed for cover?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
ABRAHAM. Would anybody seeing it have known that?

Mr.
HARRIS. I would assume so, yes.

Senator
ABRAHAM. When you went outside with your weapons on that day, why did
you take
them?

Mr.
HARRIS. Mostly out of habit.I don’t
know.The day before, it seems like, you
know, we walked—we were walking through the woods, and somebody just
started
shooting.And that’s the way I perceived
it.And I couldn’t see being—you know,
going out, outside again and not being armed.

Senator
ABRAHAM. So you felt—you did not—but you knew by that afternoon when
you went
outside that you were being accused of having—

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
ABRAHAM. [continuing]. Murdered a U.S.
marshal.So you went outside, you had
some reason to believe that there would be possible other U.S. marshals or Federal officials
might be out
there?did you think that might be the
case?

Mr.
HARRIS. Well, I knew they’d be on their way or they’d come up and
they’d, you
know, start saying, OK, you guys got to, you know, put away your guns
and come
out, or whatever you know, come out with your hands up, or whatever.That’s what I was waiting for.And—

Senator
ABRAHAM. And would you have shot at them?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, sir.

Senator
ABRAHAM If you had gone outside and you had seen a person, would you
have shot
them?

Mr.
HARRIS.No, sir, not unless they were
shooting at me.

Senator
ABRAHAM. OK. Obviously you knew Randy Weaver very well.Did you know, did you have a sense of the
reputation he had in the area and in the community as being somebody—I
mean I
am not asking you to comment on his political views at all here, but
would you
say that you were pretty familiar with the image and reputation he had?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
ABRAHAM. Would you say that if you were —based on that reputation,
would a
person sent to arrest Randy Weaver have a reason to be careful if they
went up
on that mountain?

Mr.
HARRIS. If you were to take to heart what the neighbors were saying,
yeah, you
might get that—you know, get a bad impression of him.

Senator
ABRAHAM. Given the particularly remote circumstances that there is up
there at
Ruby Ridge, so if you were going up there into a neighborhood where
there were
houses and driveways and everything.

Mr.
HARRIS. Right.

Senator
ABRAHAM. You would be normally probably cautions, but give the
reputation of
Weaver, you think it would have been—I am not trying to condone anybody
shooting anybody here without warning an so on.

Mr.
HARRIS. Right.

Senator
ABRAHAM. But the marshals have talked to us about it, and their version
certainly is that their conduct was consistent with the threat they
were—at
least that they believed or that rumor suggested Randy Weaver had, and
you were
aware of that threat, too? You don't find their behavior in that sense
to be
that unusual? If you were going up there, you would have been
concerned, too?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
ABRAHAM. OK. Because we have heard, there were lots of claims, many of
them
fallacious, as it turned out, but that there were dugouts and hideouts
and lots
of weaponry?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah, right.

Senator
ABRAHAM. And that was the common view in the community of what might be
up
there?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir, it was.

Senator
ABRAHAM. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator
SPECTER. Thank you very much, Senator Abraham.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr.
Harris, do you remember what day of the week August 21st was?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes. It was Friday.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And you said that you came up to the cabin the weekend
before?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, sir.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. What day did you come up?

Mr.
HARRIS. Or, ma'am. Sorry.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. What day did you arrive at the cabin?

Mr.
HARRIS. I'm not sure. It was—

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Friday? Saturday? Sunday?

Mr.
HARRIS. It was the weekend sometime, yeah. I don't remember which day.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Well, so would it have been fair to say you were there on
Sunday the
week before?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, ma'am.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. So you were there Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday.

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, ma’am.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And Friday. You knew that the surveillance camera had been
found.

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, ma'am.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And you helped take it apart and put it in a box. You were
aware, of
course, that the family was responding to various noises, and you
participated
in those responses, did you not, by where they would go out by the
rocks?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, ma'am.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And at that point when you got there, everyone was armed all
the
time?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, ma'am—wel1, except for Vicki and—-she wasn't armed all the
time.
But the majority of the time, yes, ma'am.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And Rachel was armed on that day, the 21st?

Mr.
HARRIS. I don't recall if she was or not.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Rachel—

Mr.
HARRIS. She usually carried a pistol.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And how old was Rachel?

Mr.
HARRIS. I think she was 10.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. OK. And at the time Sara was how old?

Mr.
HARRIS. I believe she was 16.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And Sammy was 14?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, ma'am.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Right? OK.

Now,
I want to go over—when we were over at that diorama and you left the
cabin and
you showed us the trail you walked on down into the fern field to the
Y, how
far would you say that was from the house—a quarter of a mile, a
half-mile,
three-quarters of a mile, or a mile?

Mr.
HARRIS. Either a quarter-mile or half-mile, something like that. I
really don't
know.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. All right. And how fast were you going?

Mr.
HARRIS. Just walking.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. You were just walking and you were able to keep up with the
dog just
walking?

Mr.
HARRIS. The dog was just walking.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. The dog was just walking.

Mr.
HARRIS. Yeah. He wasn't running or anything.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. OK. So you walkEd the whole way?

Mr.
HARRIS. Until we got right to the Y, yes, ma'am.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. All right. Do you remember when you got to the Y hearing
Randy
Weaver hollering or yelling as he ran?

Mr.
HARRIS. Not until after the shooting started. I heard him afterwards. I
heard
him hollering for us to come home.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Did you hear him say anything about seeing men in camouflage?

Mr.
HARRIS. No.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And he didn't tell you that a camouflaged man had the drop
on him at
one point and could have shot him?

Mr.
HARRIS. I didn't—no, I didn't hear Randy until after the shooting.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. OK. Let's talk a little bit about the shooting because your
prior statements
and what you have said today are at variance.

Did
you recall a six-page handwritten statement that Sara Weaver put
together

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, ma'am

Senator
FEINSTEIN [continuing]. That you signed and then she sort of smuggled
it out of
the cabin so that everyone would know the truth?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, ma'am.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And this was presented because she was afraid everyone would
not
know the truth, right?

Mr.
HARRIS. She wrote that, she didn't think we were going to, she thought
we would
all die right there. So—

Senator
FEINSTEIN. OK.

Mr.
HARRIS [continuing]. She wanted something said about what happened.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. OK, well, we will get to that in a minute. Let me go back
for a
second. You were, at least 5 or 6 days, you knew that Randy Weaver had
an
arrest warrant out for him, right?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, ma'am.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And everyone was armed all of the time?

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, ma'am.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Did you never ask whether he intended to surrender?

Mr.
HARRIS. No, Ma'am.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. You knew there was surveillance on the hill. You knew there
were
practice maneuvers of the family responding to noises. What was the
plan if
suddenly people came up the hill?

Mr.
HARRIS. I don't recall any practice maneuvers or—when, on those
tapes—are you
referring to the video tapes where everybody runs out to the rock?

Senator
FEINSTEIN. No. Obviously there were cameras that took pictures of the
family
responding to various noises where each member of the family would go
in the
clearing where the rock was, armed.

Mr.
HARRIS. Yes, but I never saw that as a, you know, let's go get ready to
have a
shootout. There was, there was just, you know, just the family up there
and
myself some of the times. And, you know, you kind of start to get on
each
other's nerves. And you're kind of boring, and, you know, there's and
somebody
coming up the hill, you know, coming to visit, you know, we'd go a
1½, 2 months
of not seeing anybody come up or anything, you know.

So
it was, I mean it was a big thing for somebody to come visit. And
that's why,
you know, that's what I think all the running was about, was getting
out there,
you know, who's coming to visit and, you know, they'd bring stuff for
the kids
and stuff, do you know what I mean?

Senator
FEINSTEIN. OK.

Mr.
HARRIS. So, I never

Senator
FEINSTEIN. So each person of the family would to go the set place where
they
went

Mr.
HARRIS. No.

Senator
FEINSTEIN [continuing]. Each time there was a noise or you thought
somebody was
coming up the mountain?

Mr.
HARRIS. No. There was no set, no. Just out to the rock where you could
see who
was coming.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. OK. Now, you testified today or you indicated today that you
thought
that when Striker started barking that it was some animal. And in the
statement
on August 26, that is signed by yourself and every member the family,
let me
read the first part to you.

"Sam
said he heard something or someone running west. So they followed. Sam
and
Kevin followed Striker. Randy dropped down on the old logging road and
headed
west."

Now,
we will go to your part of the statement. You say,

Me,
Kevin Harris, and Sam followed Striker through the woods until we came
out on
the road that forks off the one Randy was on and runs north. We, Kevin
and Striker,
headed south towards the same road Randy was on. Striker reached the
corner
first, then Sam and then me. A camouflaged person was in the road and
he shot
Striker. Sam yelled, "You shot Striker, you son-of-a-bitch." And they
pointed a gun at Sam. Sam opened fire. I, Kevin, took cover beside a
stump and
Sam headed up the road toward home. It appeared as though Sam had been
wounded
in the right arm. Also Sam yelled, "Oh, shit, Kevin, come on", and
headed home.

The men were
still shooting at Sam so I shot one of the sons-of-bitches. After they
killed
Sam one of the Feds jumped out of the woods and for the first time
declared he
was a Federal Marshal.

Is that the
way it went, what you said, initially?

Mr. HARRIS. Is
that the way it happened?

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Yes.

Mr. HARRIS.
Basically but there—I mean when I said Sam was shooting, I was assuming
that he
had. It was an assumption. I saw him start to lift his rifle so I
assumed that
he was shooting. And then when I—

Senator
FEINSTEIN. All right, well, that is different than what

you said
today. Because if I understand your statement today you do not really
say that
you shot the marshal. You say you shot into the trees.

Mr. HARRIS.
Right.That, too, was an assumption. I
heard on the radio that they said that I shot him and I just assumed
that I
had. And if, I mean to— I still assume that, yes.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. So you are saying today that you never saw him, is that
correct?

Mr. HARRIS.
That's correct.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And you never heard him say, U.S. marshal, back off?

Mr. HARRIS.
No. I never heard that, no.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Did you hear Randy Weaver calling and say, Kevin, Sam, get
on up to
the house?

Mr. HARRIS.
After the shooting, yes, I did.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. So, you are. saying today that the first time that you heard
anyone
say, U.S.
marshal, was when?

Mr. HARRIS.
When the guy jumped out on the road and said, U.S. marshals.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Was that before or after you shot?

Mr. HARRIS.
After.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. You are sure Randy Weaver, you never talked about
surrendering? Did
you ever urge him to surrender?

Mr. HARRIS.
No, ma'am. I didn't feel that it was my place.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And there was no conversation, in the week that you were in
the
house, about surrendering or what was going to happen? You had a
10-year-old
little girl armed and there was no talk about why she was armed or what
might
happen?

Mr. HARRIS.
Before any of this happened, the kids were armed then. When they were,
you
know, before any of this ever came about the kids carried guns. Rachel
didn't
because she wasn't old enough yet. But when she got old enough, the
same age as
the other kids started, they first got the BB gun and they got this and
then
they got whatever.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Now, in your original statement you didn't say anything in
your
statement about looking for a deer. When did the subject of a deer
first come
up?

Mr. HARRIS.
Which

Senator
FEINSTEIN. A deer or an animal?

Mr. NEVIN.
Senator, I don't mean to interject here, but he did mention an animal
in his
statement to the FBI and there is also a reference to something or
someone in
the handwritten statement.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Could you point that out to me in the hand-written statement?

Mr. NEVIN.
Sure.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. I would appreciate that very much.

Mr. NEVIN.
Yes. On page 1 of the handwritten statement,—

Senator
FEINSTEIN.
Page 1?

Mr. NEVIN.
Yes, page one of the handwritten statement.

"Sam said
he heard something or someone running west."

Senator
FEINSTEIN. But that is not Kevin's statement. Kevin's statement, I
believe,
begins on page 3 where it begins, "Me, Kevin Harris* * *"?

Mr. NEVIN.
That is correct, Senator. And it does not address the question of why
they
went. It is just a sequential statement of what happened when he
followed
Striker through the woods. That is—excuse me.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Prior statement, you saw Sam Weaver turn and run up the road
after
he was hit and wounded in the right arm, is that correct?

Mr. HARRIS. I
don't know what the statement says but I didn't, I didn't, I knew he
was going
up behind me because he was down by—could you ask it again, please?

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Yes, I would be happy to.

According to
your dictated statement you saw Sammy Weaver turn and run up the road
after he
was hit and wounded in the right arm, is that right?

Mr. HARRIS.
What I have here, it doesn't say that I saw it, it just says that he
did it.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. How did you know he did if you didn't see it?

Mr. HARRIS~
Well, I could hear him hollering. He was hollering back and forth to
Weaver and
he was yelling to me and it just seemed like he was getting further
away from
me.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. So you didn't know he was hit in the arm?

Mr. HARRIS. I
didn't know where he was hit. He made a sound like he, you know, like
if you
smash your hand, you'd go, ahh, shh—, you know, he made that sound. So
I didn't
know where he was hit. I just assumed that he'd been hit.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. All right. So you didn't see Sammy. So, can you dispute that
he
turned and began to fire back into the Y?

Mr. HARRIS.
No, ma'am.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. So, in essence, you really don't know whether he fired that
first
shot?

Mr. HARRIS.
That first shot? I know that he didn't fire the first shot at the Y.
The first
shot at the Y was the shot at the dog and other than that, I don't know.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. But you don’t know whether he fired then the first shot at
the
deputies?

Mr. HARRIS. I
didn't—no, I don't. Other than from the evidence that they brought out
in trial
where his shell casings were found. Other than that, no, ma'am, I don't.

Senator
FEINSTEIN.
Now, you didn't see Sammy at any time then at the Y, is that correct?

Mr. HARRIS. At
the point—

Senator
FEINSTEIN. You didn't see him get shot in the back; you didn't see him
get shot
in the arm?

Before
yielding to Senator Craig, I want to ask you just one question about
something
which both Senator Thompson and Senator Feinstein brought up.

Senator
Thompson asked you whether it occurred to you that you were being
observed and
you answered, no. But Senator Feinstein asked you about taking down the
video
camera which the marshals had put up and you testified that you did
know that
that was taken down and that you participated in it yourself

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes.

Senator
SPECTER. Now, the question I have for you, Mr. Harris, is in the
context that
you knew that Mr. Weaver had not responded to the pending court charges
and
that the video camera was up to observe what was going on, didn't you
have some
sense that some Federal law enforcement officers might well come into
the area
to take Mr. Weaver into custody so that they could compel him to stand
trial?

Mr. HARRIS.
No. When I—I assumed they didn't want to be in the area. And so that's
why they
used their Video camera thingy they had up there if they didn't want to
be up
in that area.

Senator
SPECTER. But you said to Senator Thompson that you didn't know you were
being
observed. You knew that the video camera was up there to observe you.

Mr. HARRIS. At
what point didn't I know we were being observed?

Senator SPECTER.
Well, he said, didn't it occur to you that you were being observed?
Senator
Thompson asked you that question and you said, no.

Mr. HARRIS. It
must have been at a different point. I must have been confused at the
time.

Senator
SPECTER. Well, when the video camera was up you knew you were being
observed.

Mr. HARRIS. Yes,
sir.

Senator
SPECTER. The point that I want your reaction to and response to,
concerns the
context of this man in camouflage with a stocking cap which you said it
looked
like a beard. Was it not true that you had some reason to believe that
there
would be Federal marshals or some law enforcement people coming to take
Mr.
Weaver into custody, so that when you started firing back that you or a
reasonable man would have had some reason to know that they were law
enforcement
officials?

Mr. HARRIS. I
never once thought that they would come up there like that. I figured
they
would just wait him out, you know.

Senator SPECTER.
How did you think they were going to take Mr. Weaver into custody and
make him
stand trial?

Mr. HARRIS.
Wait until he came off the mountain.

Senator SPECTER.
Senator Craig.

Senator CRAIG.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Kevin, again,
all of us appreciate your being here today and adding to the record we
are attempting
to build on this issue.

Senator
SPECTER. Mr. Harris, do you need a break? This is going to be the last
questioning,
it will be 15 minutes. But we have kept you here for a long time and I
just
wanted to make that inquiry.

Mr. HARRIS.
No; I'm OK, thank you.

Senator
SPECTER. OK. And Mr. Nevin, Mr. Matthews, the same?

Mr. MATTHEWS.
We are fine.

Senator
SPECTER. He is speaking for you, Mr. Nevin.

Mr. NEVIN.
Well, I accept that, Senator, thank you.

Senator CRAIG.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Kevin, when
did you first remember meeting Randy and Vicki Weaver?

Mr. HARRIS. It
was when I was 16. They were staying in a trailer down on the meadow,
down at
Rau's meadow. I guess that is what everybody called it, Rau's meadow
down
there. They were staying in a trailer while they were building their
house.

Senator CRAIG.
How did you happen to meet them at their trailer? What was the occasion
that
caused you to meet them for the first time, do you recall?

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes. I was staying with a, staying with this old friend of my mom and
he was
looking for property. He was going to cut firewood and stuff and he
wanted me
to work with him and help him. So he was looking at a piece of property
right
below Weaver's place. And he was gone up there and I was just sitting
in the
truck waiting for him and I met Vicki and the kids then, and then Randy
later.

Senator CRAIG.
And because you kept coming back to that area, you got to know them
better and
ultimately became as they described, an adopted son, in essence, or a
part of
the family?

How did that
develop?

Mr. HARRIS. I
worked for this guy that I went up there with and then I would help
Randy and
Vicki when I wasn't doing work for this other—

Senator CRAIG.
They asked you to come up and help them?

Mr. HARRIS. I
think I offered to help them pack lumber and just give them a hand. And
then I
started hanging out more and more with them and less with this other
guy. And I
ended up, this guy took me back to Spokane
and when I was leaving Weaver told me, yelled across the field that I
could
feel free to come up any time. And so the next spring, I did. And I
stayed
there I think about 8 months at that point.

Senator CRAIG.
What year was that, do you recall?

Mr. HARRIS.
1983. Or 1983 or 1984, something like that.

Senator CRAIG.
And then, over the course of time, you became good friends of the
family and
spent a good deal of time with them. And by your testimony this
morning, you
came the weekend prior and stayed the full week before the Friday
incident. I
assume that during that stretch of time with the Weavers, in getting to
know
them, you got to know some of their friends. Did you know Allen
Jeppeson?

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes, sir.

Senator CRAIG.
Were you ever in the presence of Randy and Allen when they talked about
Randy's
difficulties?

Mr. HARRIS. I
might have been. I usually didn't pay much attention to Weaver when he
was
talking.

Senator CRAIG.
What do you mean you didn't pay much attention to Weaver when he was
talking?
Apparently you grew to have high regards or warm feelings for the
family and he
was the father figure or the father of the family. If you were his, by
the
family's friends, adopted son, in essence, you didn't pay any attention
to him?

Mr. HARRIS.
Well, I—no. I mean I paid attention to him but I didn't—

Senator CRAIG.
Well, did you ever hear Allen and Randy talk about the situation that
Randt was
in and the possibility of surrendering and conditions or terms or ideas
about
surrendering that Allen might present to the marshals?

Mr. HARRIS.
One time Allen came up and said that he told the marshals that he
would, that
he was going to, he offered to handcuff himself to Weaver or something
in some
bizarre thing. I can't remember what it was exactly. But

Senator CRAIG.
So you do recall him saying that?

Mr. HARRIS.
Something, something to that effect, yes. But it was really weird or
something.
Like he would stay handcuffed to him for however long or something, I
don't
know. I think we just laughed it off.

Senator CRAIG.
Do you remember Jackie Brown?

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes, sir.

Senator CRAIG.
How well do you remember her?

Mr. HARRIS. I
know her pretty good.

Senator CRAIG.
She was, she came up to the cabin during the week prior to the
shooting, is
that correct?

Mr. HARRIS. I
don't recall.

Senator CRAIG.
She testifies being up there and you were up there at the same time,
but you
don't remember that?

Mr. HARRIS.
Right. I, she might have been.

Senator CRAIG.
How Then did she come up?

Mr. HARRKIS. I
would say occasionally.

Senator CRAIG.
Do you remember any conversations that Jackie and Vicki had or the
Weaver
family and Jackie had about their situation, meaning the arrest and
where they
found themselves on the mountain?

Mr. HARRIS. I
don't recall any certain conversation.

Senator CRAIG.
Do you remember the Raus?

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes, sir.

Senator CRAIG.
Were you aware of the testimony that Mrs. Rau gave before this
committee last
week?

Mr. HARRIS.
No, sir.

Senator CRAIG.
You are not aware of it. Then let me ask you this question, did you and
two of
the Weaver children ever break into a guest house at the Raus?

Mr. HARRIS.
No, we didn't.

Senator CRAIG.
Because she testified last week that you had or

had attempted
to.

Mr. HARRIS. We
didn't attempt to break into anything. I went and siphoned a little bit
of gas
out of her tractor. And that was it.

Senator CRAIG.
Was anybody with you when you siphoned a little as out of their
tractor? In
other words—

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes.

Senator CRAIG
[continuing]. You stole gas from the Raus?

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes, sir.

Senator CRAIG.
OK. Why did you do that?

Mr. HARRIS. I
needed gas for my motorcycle for running into town and my chain saw
for—

Senator CRAIG.
Were any of the kids with you when you did it?

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes, sir.

Senator CRAIG.
Who was with you?

Mr. HARRIS.
Sam and Sara.

Senator CRAIG.
Sammy and Sara were with you?

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes, sir.

Senator CRAIG.
Do you ever recall the Weaver children shouting at the Raus or making
loud
statements about the Raus, out in front of their home or where they
could be
heard from the Rau property?

Mr. HARRIS.
No, sir.

But I wasn't
always around all the time.

Senator CRAIG.
Did you or Randy or any member of the Weaver family steal or move a
water
system that the Raus had?

Mr. HARRIS. Yes,
sir

Senator CRAIG.
What did you do with that; tell me about that?

Mr. HARRIS.
When

Senator CRAIG.
And why did you do it?

Mr. HARRIS.
There was kind of a dispute going on when Randy moved off the mountain
for a 1½
years or a couple of years, I can't—I don't know how long, but when he
left he
told Wayne Rau that if he-—you know, because Wayne didn't have a water
system,
so if he wanted to go ahead and hook up, run a pipe up to Weaver’s
place and
hook into his spring there that he could. But then when he came back
and he
needed his water he was going to have to find another way to get water.

And, so, Wayne said that
was cool
and that's what they did. And then when Weaver moved back up there, Wayne got upset
about
having to unhook the water system he had up at Weaver's place. And
Randy told
him to go over and just go plug a pipe into—there’s a creek over there
on
another guy's property—and he said, if you just go do it there won't be
any
problem, nobody will ever notice and, you know, no big deal. But he
said if
they gave him permission to get water it might give him a right to oi1
or
something.

So just go
plug in and no harm, you know. And I guess Wayne went and told this guy, this
Farnesworth guy, that Randy had his water plugged into his creek and so
it
ended up missing. And they figured that Wayne
had taken it for his system to go over to Ruby Creek.

Senator CRAIG.
But you, in fact, had taken it?

Mr. HARRIS.
Say it again?

Senator CRAIG.
Did you and Randy Weaver remove the Raus water system?

Mr. HARRIS.
No. This is before when they took the Weaver's

Senator CRAIG.
Well, let's cut to the chase. You said a moment ago you removed it. Did
you?

Mr. HARRIS. I
was getting to that point.

Senator CRAIG.
OK

Mr. HARRIS.
Somebody took Weaver’s pipe and he thought that the Raus did for their
water svstem—

Senator CRAIG.
I See.

Mr. HARRIS
(continuing]. Because it was on Farnesworth's property.

Senator CRAIG.
That is what began to build the bad feelings?

Mr. HARRIS~
Yes, sir. And then so, the guy that owned the property said, you know, Wayne, go ahead
and take
that pipe out of there. And so and it was gone, and so Weaver figured
that pipe
had been taken down, Rau went up and took it. And so, we went and took
it back.

Senator CRAIG.
All right. I am beginning to understand the picture then. You thought
you were
retrieving your own system?

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes, sir. Well—

Senator CRAIG.
Well, what?

Mr. HARRIS.
Maybe a little more pipe than what would have been there, I don't know.

Senator CAIGG.
So you did take some of the Raus' property in that instance, also?

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes, sir.

Senator CRAIG.
OK. I am confused, as I think the committee is, Kevin. about what
appears to be
your absence of knowledge that anybody was in or on the mountain or
around the
mountain, attempting to apprehend or cause to apprehend Randy Weaver.

Now, you, by
your own testimony this morning, moved back and forth or came and left
on
relatively regular intervals and you ~ that time, or any time prior to
that,
you never saw anyone that appeared to be suspicious or a strange
vehicle in the
area or something you thought was other than the normal for the
neighbors?

Mr. HARRIS. No,
sir, I never saw anything.

Senator CRAIG.
Once you and the children discovered the camera and the camera was
taken down,
there was no discussion in the house about the camera and that you were
under
surveillance?

Mr. HARRIS.
Well, just that there was a camera and now they weren't watching. We
didn't
think they could—you know, we took their camera so they couldn't watch
us.

Senator CRAIG.
The day that you were shot and that Vicki was killed and that Randy was
shot,
and you all left or you went out of the cabin, to the rock, Randy to
the birthing
shed, that was, of course, the day following your shooting and Sammy
Weaver
being killed.

You, by then,
understood that something was wrong, I would have to assume that. Did
you? Or
were you still under the belief that you had just bumped into some
character in
camouflage wearing a beard who shot a dog?

Mr. HARRIS.
After?

Senator CRAIG.
Were you, by that time, you had discussed through the evening—or you
had had
maybe limited conversations because of the trauma that the family was
going
through—that you were under surveillance or you were under siege? I use
the
word, siege. Is that reasonable to assume that you felt that?

Mr. HARRIS I
felt that they were going to come up. I didn't, I didn't think we were
surrounded or anything.

Senator CRAIG.
Did you feel you were at risk at that point?

Mr. HARRIS.
Risk.

Senator CRAIG.
Your life was at risk?

Mr. HARRIS.
Oh, yes, sir.

Senator CRAIG.
If you felt your life was at risk, I am always a little frustrated by
why you
then all left the cabin that morning. You to go get batteries. Randy to
look at
Sammy. You all left with guns if you felt you were at risk. Isn't the
action of
having a gun in the hand, when you feel you were at risk antagonistic
to begin
with?

Mr. HARRIS. I
didn't know that there was anybody up there watching. I mean I didn't
know that
they had snipers up there watching us. I thought they would come up,
you know,
do something, get a bullhorn out or something and say, you got to, you
know,
you got to surrender or whatever and that's what I was waiting for.

Senator CRAIG.
You were assuming that because you, not only because of what had
occurred the
day before, but because you had also heard on the radio that a Federal
marshal
had been shot, a U.S.
marshal?

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes, sir.

Senator CRAIG.
During the time from when you left the cabin until you returned to the
cabin,
did you ever shoulder your rifle and point it into the sky?

Mr. HARRIS.
No, sir.

Senator CRAIG.
Did Randy ever do that?

Mr. HARRIS.
Not that I saw.

Senator CRAIG.
Was it Sara that was with you?

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes.

Senator CRAIG.
Did she have a rifle?

Mr. HARRIS. I
don't recall if she did or not.

Senator CRAIG.
But neither of you ever pointed it into the sky from the standpoint of
shouldering it?

Mr. HARRIS.
No, sir.

Senator CRAIG.
As if you were aiming at something?

Mr. HARRIS.
No, sir.

Senator CRAIG.
When you were retreating back to the cabin, I believe the marshals
testified
that you stopped somewhere in or near the cabin, turned and looked
around and
then went on into the cabin. Do you recall doing that?

Mr. HARRIS.
No. I didn't look around. I stopped there and when I did I was looking
right
at, I was looking at Vicki.

Senator CRAIG.
But you never whirled around with your gun and looked out anywhere?

Mr. HARRIS.
No, sir. When I got to the door I had my rifle in my hand, my left hand
and I
was just holding on to it, the barrel pointed up, holding on to the top
of the
stock.

Senator CRAIG.
Are you right-handed?

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes, sir.

Senator CRAIG.
You shoulder to the right?

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes, sir.

Senator CRAIG.
But you were running and holding it with your left hand?

Mr. HARRIS.
No. When I got to the door—I don't remember how I was holding it when I
was
running, probably in both hands, like this.

Senator CRAIG.
I do have one more question, Mr. Chairman.

You, I am
sure, are aware, Kevin, about a statement made by James Radler, do you
recall
that name, who was allegedly in the Ada County Jail with you and Randy
Weaver
in October and November of 1992?

Mr. HARRIS. I
remember hearing about it.

Senator CRAIG.
Do you remember him?

Mr. HARRIS.
No, sir, I don't.

Senator CRAIG.
You don't ever remember having a conversation with him?

Mr. HARRIS.
No, sir, I don't.

Senator CRAIG.
Have you read accounts of his statement or what he said, that has now
become
public, as it relates to your knowledge and Randy Weaver's knowledge of
the
Federal marshals?

Mr. HARRIS. I
never read what he said, no, sir.

Senator CRAIG.
He basically says that Randy advised you to shoot first and ask
questions
later. Did Randy Weaver ever tell you to do that?

Mr. HARRIS.
No, sir. And I never told anybody that.

Senator CRAIG.
OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator
SPECTER. Thank you, Senator Craig.

Senator
Feinstein has a couple more questions.

Senator FEINSTEIN.
The one thing that really bothers me are your statements that you
didn't know
anything about the fact that the marshals might come up the mountain to
get him
or to arrest him. And that there was no discussion in the family while
you were
there as to what to do if and when that happened.

Did you know a
Mr. Hofmeister?

Mr. HARRIS.
No, ma'am. Oh, I don't know him but I know who he is.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. I believe he represented Mr. Weaver, was an attorney?

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes, ma'am.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And he wrote and sent a letter up the mountain, talked with
Mr.
Weaver. You are not aware of any of those conversations? They were
never
discussed in the house?

Mr. HARRIS. I
don't remember anything about Hofmeister, no.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. To the effect that Mr. Weaver should come off the mountain.
If he
didn't, it would be a terrible tragedy.

Mr. HARRIS.
No, ma'am, I don't remember that.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And that was never discussed, in all the days you were
there, there
was no discussion? This is the one thing to me that makes your story
not
credible that there was no discussion among the family that they had a
big
problem and what would they do about that problem.

For almost a
week that was never discussed according to you, is that right?

Mr. HARRIS.
Well, they had been up there for almost 2 years before this week. I
mean it
wasn't—

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Yes, but now everybody is armed all of the time, every time
they
left the cabin. They didn't go down, they

didn't leave
the cabin because they knew Mr. Weaver would probably be arrested if
they did.

Mr. HARRIS. I
don't believe that that is true. I don't know where you are getting
that from.

Senator
FEINSTEIN.
When, to your knowledge, was the last time Mr. Weaver had been in town?

Mr. HARRIS.
January 1990, I think? 1991? Something like that.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. So, a long time that family had been up there without going
into
town. Didn't that strike you as being a little strange?

Mr. HARRIS.
No. I—

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Not getting provisions themselves, not leaving the mountain?

Mr. HARRIS.
Well, I knew why they—I am confused. I am sorry. I—

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Well, what is bothering me is that everything we have
received
indicates that there was discussion. That the family had talked. That
there was
an agreed upon position by the family with respect to coming off the
mountain
and/or being arrested. And the decision had been made not to come off
the
mountain and not to submit to arrest. And the letters that Mrs. Weaver,
Vicki
Weaver sent indicate that that was the position of the family.

So you're coming
into the family at a very precipitous time and you're telling as that
there's
no discussion, everything was just the way it always had been,
everything was
just fine. That doesn't make sense to me.

Mr. HARRIS.
Well, I had been there, I had been living there for probably 3 or 4
months
before this happened. I had built a cabin. It was just like any other
time.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Yes, but here's a family—

Mr. HARRIS. I
mean it wasn't—I don't understand why

Senator
FEINSTEIN. OK, here's a family. They haven't—no one has been off the
hill for
almost a year.

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes.

Senator
FEINSTEIN~ And now you had—I mean didn't that—they used to go down and
get
provisions and they had the pickup and they'd load the pickup and
they'd come
back up the hill. Now, all of this stopped.

Mr. HARRIS.
Right.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And there was never any discussion as to why, in your
presence?

Mr. HARRIS.
Oh, yes, ma'am, I knew why.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And what was the reason?

Mr. HARRIS. I
knew all about not going to court and I knew all about that.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. So, what did you know about it?

Mr. HARRIS. About
why they weren't going to court?

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Yes.

Mr. HARRIS. Or
why he wasn't going to go to court?

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Yes, that is—

Mr. HARRIS. He
told me about the letters he got from the probation officer. He told me
that he
had been set up by this Magisano guy. I knew about all of that.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Did you ever ask why don't you go down and get it
straightened out?

Mr. HARRIS.
Yes. He thought he would be railroaded if he did by the way things were
coming
about.

Senator
FEINSTEIN.
And you agreed with that and didn't advise him, perhaps, to go down and
get it straightened
out, to surrender?

Mr. HARRIS. I
didn't, no, I didn't say those things, no. They had already made their
decision
when I got up there.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. You knew about the decision then?

Mr. HARRIS.
Not to go to court, yes, ma'am.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. And so what did you think would happen? Because you were
there then.

Mr. HARRIS.
Right.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Clearly you were going to be a part of whatever would
happen. What
did you think it was that would happen?

Mr. HARRIS.I
was going to be a part of what happened? I never thought they, I didn't
think
they were coming up. I figured that sooner or later Weaver would get
tired of
being up there and he'd turn himself in. I thought they were just
playing a
waiting game.

And then when
they put the, when the camera thing, when they had that, I thought they
were
trying to find, you know, thinking that Weaver was sneaking off the
mountain or
something and they could, you know, get a picture or find out when he
leaves or
if he goes off the mountain or something.

Senator
FEINSTEIN. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.

Senator
SPECTER. Thank you, Senator Feinstein.

Mr. Harris,
just one final topic regarding what we have heard in earlier testimony
about
the window. Do you recollect whether the curtains were pulled back or
what the
position of the curtains were at the time the bullet hole was made in
the
window and in the curtain?

Mr. HARRIS. I
don't recall what position the curtains were in. I would have to assume
that
they were open bit I really don't know exactly what position they were
in.

Senator
SPECTER. Do you have a sense for whether someone in the position of
Special
Agent Horiuchi could have seen through that window at the time that you
ran
through the door?

Mr. HARRIS.
From what I've heard in court and stuff, I believe he could have, but
other
than that, I don't know.

Senator
SPECTER. You never had occasion to to look through that window at any
distance
with the door open at about the position it was when Special Agent.
Horiuchi
fired the shot?

My name is
Kevin Harris. I'm 28 years old. I live in a small town in WashingtonState
where I work as a welder. I have a five year-old son named Jade. I
completed
the 9th grade in school.

I'm not a
public speaker or a trained witness. I am very nervous. My lawyers have
told me
that there is great risk for me in coming here because people may
misunderstand
me, or because I might misspeak in some way.

But someone
needs to tell you the truth about what happened at the Y and at Ruby
Ridge, and
I'm going to do that.

I didn’t 't
come here—and I never was at Ruby Ridge—because of religion or
politics. I know
that that a lot of people were offended by Randy's and Vicky's beliefs.
But I
visited the Weavers simply because they were like a family to me. They
loved me
and I love them. They always welcomed me, accepted me, and made me feel
that I
belonged.They were warm and hospital.
There was always a place to sleep, and food on the table, even when
they didn’t
have much themselves.

I met the
Weavers when I was 16.I guess I was a
troubled kid. My dad died when I was 2, and I was raised by a series of
stepfathers. The Weavers permitted me to be part of their family
—something
which was missing from my life—and I welcomed it.I
knew them, and sometimes lived with them,
off and on for the next 9 years, until August 1992.I rarely lived with them on a full-time
basis. There was one period of about 8 months, beginning in the spring
of 1984
right after they had finished their cabin when I was there
continuously. But
mostly I came and went. I remember one period of about a
year-and-a-half when I
didn't see them at all.

I remember going
to the cabin in late August or early September of 1991. Vicky was
pregnant with
Elieheba, and her mom and dad came to visit—they wanted her to come
down off
the mountain to be near a hospital, but she refused. They made me to
stay with
the family until the baby was born, in case there were problems. I
stayed until
the day after Elisheba was born, then I left for the winter.

Sometimes I
carried guns when I was at the cabin. I heard later that the Marshals
watched
us with their spy cameras, and figured out that I had a gun 66% of the
time.
The Weavers lived off the land. There was a garden, and we hunted
whenever game
was available. When we killed a deer, Vicki would can the venison. I
also felt
better having a gun in the woods, for protection from animals, like
mountain
lions, bears, and moose, which are fairly common up there. Many people
in
Boundary county carry guns as a matter of course. It's not uncommon
there to
see men— even women—carrying guns in the grocery store.

We had no idea
that the deputy marshals would be in the woods on that Friday. In fact,
I
really didn't believe that the Marshals would come up and try to arrest
Randy—I
figured that they would just wait him out. I mean, that's what would've
made
sense. When I learned at the trial that they had come to the cabin on a
number
of occasions I was very surprised. Whenever I was at the cabin I freely
went to
town, picked up mail, and went to the grocery store, and no law
enforcement officer
ever stopped me, or even questioned me.

The only time
I was ever contacted by law enforcement officers was the previous
August when a
man who identified himself as a marshal called my foster mom in Spokane looking
for me. I
returned the call. The man told me, "you're probably not going to be
able to
help me, but I want to ask you something.What kinds of guns does Weaver have, and would he
booby-trap his
property?" I said, "you're right, I can't help you." He said
okay, and hung up.

I spent a good
part of the spring and summer of 1992 at the Weaver cabin. I had been
promised
a job running equipment on a hay farm over at Ephrata, Washington.The job was supposed to have begun that
Monday the 17th, but it was delayed a week—I remember
exactly why,
the hay was wet or some equipment broke down.If not for that, I wouldn’t have even have there on the 21st.

Anyway, it was
typical week.I remember that I took the
kids (except Elisheba) down to Ruby Creek on Thursday, and we spent the
day
fishing and swimming.We caught a nice
mess of small trout and took them back and fried them up for dinner.Incidentally, we didn’t take any guns with us
on that trip.

August 21,
1992 was a Friday, and Friday was the day which the Weavers kept as the
Sabbath. We did no work on that day—just relaxed, read, and visited.

Late in the
morning we heard the dogs bark and we went outside. Striker the big
yellow lab,
frequently barked at squirrels or noises or anything, but this wasn’t
that kind
of a bark—it was more insistent, as if someone or something were around.

When we got
outside to the rocks Striker had gone on down the hill near the lower
garden
and he was barking up into the woods, toward an opening where we'd
taken some
trees for firewood.

Sam and Randy
went down the driveway, and I went down a small path through the rocks.
They
got to the garden area ahead of me.

By the time I
got down there Striker had come out of the woods and was at the road
with Randy
and Sam.He wasn’t barking anymore but
he was still interested in something in the woods.

Striker started
trotting down the road toward the tree line, then looking back at us as
if he
wanted us to follow. It's open in this area, and just before the dense

trees there's
an old skid trail up to the right where they used to drag out logs, and
Striker
stopped there. Up the hill to your right
after a few yards the slope flattens out, and a game trail ax through.

The dog headed
up toward this game trail, I was thinking that an animal might be there
since
lots of deer corn down to raid our garden. We were about out of
venison, and we
would've been glad to shoot a deer.

Randy and Sam
and I all went up to the game trail. Striker seemed to be sniffing
something,
and I told Randy I was going to follow the game trail—Sam said, "me
too," Randy said he would go back and head down the other road.

Sam and I
started down the game trail—the dog, Sam, and then me. The dog was
walking along
ahead of us and wagging his tail, not running. He was no longer
barking. He'd
go ahead, then wait for us to catch up—he never got far

enough ahead that
we had to call him back. After awhile I figured that whatever animal
had been
in there was probably gone.

We came out of
the woods above the fern field. Immediately looked up the road thinking
I might
— the hind end of a deer running away. We didn't see anything, so we
turned and
walked down to the fern field.

The officers
testified
that they came out in or below the fern field, so I’m sure that Striker
wasn't
directly tracking them at that point.

We went
through the fern field, and down the road to where it connects up with
the road
up to the cabin—what everybody now calls "the Y.” It's
an old logging road, but it's really more
of a trail—the trees grow over the top, and it’s dark under them,
almost like a
tunnel.

The trail is
fairly narrow and we walked single file. We were just walking along,
heading
back to the cabin. I was carrying my
30.06 rifle in my right hand, hanging down at my side. Sam was about 10
or 15
feet ahead of me.

As we got to the
Y, I saw Striker run off ahead. Suddenly I saw that he was near a
person. The
person had camouflage clothing on, and seemed to have a beard. He
wasn't
looking at us—he was looking up in the direction of the road to the
cabin, so I
saw his profile. He had what looked like a pistol in his right hand.

At my trial I
learned that the "beard" I saw was really a camouflage stocking over
the marshal's face, and that the "pistol" was the silenced submachine
gun.

Then the dog
seemed to lunge for the man's hands, the way that Striker did when you
play
with him. I thought about telling the man, don't worry, the dog won't
hurt you,
that's how he plays, but I never got the chance.

I was still
walking
forward, and the dog was jumping around the man. The dog then moved
away from
the man, in a circle, and ends up facing uphill.

Suddenly the
dog was shot. My impression was that the man near him was the one who
shot him,
but I can't be sure of that. I watched as the camouflaged man ran into
the
brush.

Sam stop above
the dog. As l came up next to him, he started to raise his weapon,
said,
"you shot my dog, you son-of-a-bitch," As soon as he started to raise
his weapon up, I turned to my right and headed for cover.

As I did, I
was smoke puffs and brass shell casings flying in the air down in the
woods
below the trail. I assumed Sam was shooting, and that someone was
shooting back
at him—but I didn't actually see Sam shoot.

In fact once I
turned away from Sam as he raised his gun, I never saw him alive again.
I have since
learned that his shell casings were found farther up the road, so he
probably
wasn't shooting at that time.

I took 2,
maybe 3 steps crouched down, found some cover beside the woods. There
were
still shots fired, and so I fired once into the brush. I believed that
whoever
was in the woods was shooting at both Sam and me. I have since learned
that
there were at least 6 bullet grazes and metal fragments found in the
area right
behind me, so I’m sure that I was right.

I continued to
move further into the woods and came up next to a stump.

Up behind me I
heard Sam saying something that made me think he'd been hit. It was
something
ilk. "Oh shit” I'm not sure where he was, but I could tell he was well
back behind me. I could also hear Randy yelling that we should come
home, and I
heard Sam say, "I’m coming Dad." I also heard Sam say, c’mon Kevin,
Kevin c'mon."

I heard a dull
hissing sound like "thhhpp," and right away I heard Sam yelp— it was
the kind of sound so you'd make if you were slugged in your chest with
a fist.
I didn't her anything from Sam after that.

I heard moaning
from the woods, and someone saying "I’m hit, I'm hit." There was
someone
standing up, leaning over something, probably a person. The person
standing up
said, I know, I know. Then this person jumped onto the road and said "US

Marshals!, US
Marshals!" This was the first time I'd heard anyone identify themselves.

Then another
man jumped up on the road and looked up in my direction. I tired my gun
about
ten feet to his left. He jumped hack into the brush, and I never saw

Obviously, I
could've shot and killed either or both of these men.

Then nothing
happened for 5 or 10 minutes. I waited, frozen. I didn't hear any
shooting or
anything that I can recall. Then I heard a vehicle moving down below—
it
sounded like a rig driving tap to the Y. I gathered myself, and dove
back
farther into the woods. A branch caught my hat and knocked it off. I
ran deeper
into the woods, and then turned uphill toward the cabin.

I ran through
the woods alongside the road a ways, and then I saw Sam laying out on
the road.
I came out on the road above Sam. I put my rifle down on the ground and
lifted
up my hands, looked down toward the Y, and said, "I just want to check
on
Sam. I walked down to where his body was, in plain view of the men at
the Y.

Sam was laying
face down in the road. He had on blue jeans, a white t-shit, a flannel
shirt,
and a sheepskin vest, with the fuzzy side in. I rolled him over, and
there was
blood all over his front. His eyes were rolled back in his head, half
closed.
His lips were turning blue. He wasn't breathing. I felt for a pulse,
and there
wasn't one. I left him laying on his back.

I learned
later that Sam's right arm was shot up pretty bad, probably from when
he was
shot the first time, but I didn't see the arm wound then. I learned
later that
the killing shot, the second shot, went right through him, from the
back, and
pierced his heart.

Then I picked
up my rifle and headed up the hill figuring that eyes were every-where
in the
woods watching me. As I got up closer to the cabin I heard someone say,
there’s
Kevin!" I tried to think of how to tell Vickie and Randy that Sam was
dead, and finally I just said it. I sat down and started to cry.

They couldn't
believe
it. They said are you sure? I said I was sure that had stopped and
looked at
his body. Randy went kind of berserk. He grabbed his gun and fired it
up into
the air repeatedly. He screamed and yelled and cursed. Vickie screamed
and
cried. Then the girls came out, and Vickie told them what had happened.

After awhile
Vickie and Randy decided that they had to go get Sam's body. I told
them where
he was, and I tried to talk them out of going down there—I was afraid
they'd get
shot too. But they insisted on going. I stayed with the girls.

I knew when
they found Sam's body because I could hear Vickie wailing and
screaming, and
Randy too.

A while later
I heard Vickie call to me from down by the garden. She said, "Kevin,
come
down here, we need some help." They had gotten Sam's body to the trees,
and then Randy and I got him as far as the pumphouse. Then I picked him
up, put
him over my shoulder, and carried him to the small cabin we called the
birthing
shed. I laid him on the bed where Vickie gave birth to Elisheba, and
left him
there with his mother and father.

I understand
they took his clothes off; cleaned him up, and wrapped him in a sheet,
hut I
wasn't there for that. After awhile Vickie came out of the shed and
came over
to me, and said, "I've never once wished that that was you and not
him." Then she gave me a hug.

For a long
time after Sam was put in the birthing shed, I sat myself on a rock
looking out
to the east. Later I went back to the house. The girls cried all

night—I assume
they didn't sleep. I know I didn’t.

The next
morning no one talked much—we were in a daze. I remember Vickie cooking
something for Elisheba, but I don't recall anyone else eating.

Early in the
morning we heard the other dogs whimpering, and Randy and Sara went out
to feed
them. We listened to the radio and heard a report that I had shot and
killed a
deputy US Marshal.

We heard
sirens in the valley. We figured they would be coming up at some point
with
bullhorns to demand that we come out. Late in the afternoon, we heard
the dog
which was tied on the rock outcroppinq whimpering like it might be
wrapped up in
its chain. Sara wanted to check on him, and Randy wanted to look at
Sam. I
needed batteries for my flashlight, and I knew there were some in a
stash of
Sam's personal things that he kept in a box out on the rock—so I went
with
them.

Sara checked
on the dog, and then followed her Dad over to the shed. Suddenly there
was a
shot.

Weaver hollered
"I'm hit, I'm hit!" Sara started pushing him around the edge of the
shed. I went straight back down the driveway. Randy was screaming "I'm
hit,

Ma, I'm hit!'
Vickie came out of the door, halfway along the rock path, called at us
to come
in. She went back to the door, opened it, then stood in it, holding it
open.

Randy and Sara
were ahead of me. I was running until I caught up them then I slowed
down to
their pace. I had my rifle in my left hand. As I started

through the
door I heard a loud boom. I was looking at Vickie at her face. As I
heard the
shot it was as if there was something moving under her skin, then her
face was
deformed, almost seemed to explode. When I couldn’t feel my left hand I
realized I’d been hit.

Rachel was
screaming really badly—I think she's the only one who saw what happened
besides
me.Randy picked the baby up, and she
was all sprayed with blood and tissue.Randy handed her to Rachel, then turned to Vickie, lifted
her head up, and
said "Oh, Ma…”

Vickie
convulsed several times, and then was still. Randy pulled her body into
the
kitchen. There was a big pool of blood flowing out of her onto the
floor—at
first I thought it was my blood, and for sure I was going to die.

They’d killed
Sam and Vickie, and almost killed Randy and I, and we were afraid that
if we
came outside they'd finish us all off. So we stayed inside.

You've heard
from others about the siege. I lay in a chair for 9 days, in and out of
consciousness, my wounds beginning to rot and stink. I only got up
twice the
whole time, both times to go to the bathroom. Both times I fainted.
There were
bright search lights at night, and always the voice of the negotiators,
calling
out to talk to Vickie, as if she were still alive.

I kept hearing
on the radio that I was wanted for murder. By then Bo Gritz and Jack
McLamb had
come up to help out, and we were talking to them. They brought me a
paper where
the FBI promised that if I went out they'd leave Weaver and the girls
alone. I
decided to and went out with Jack McLamb.

At the
hospital two FBI agents questioned me while the doctors were trying to
treat me
and nurses working on me. I explained as best I could while the doctors
were
trying to treat me what had happened at the Y.

I was in the
hospital for about 2 ½ weeks.

After I got
out of the hospital I was taken to Boise
and placed in jail. I was charged in federal district Court with the
First
Degree Murder of William Degan. The prosecutors demanded the death
penalty. I
was amazed by what they said I was guilty of—they threw the book at me.
Conspiring
with the Weaver family to cause an armed confrontation with the
Government; assault
with a deadly weapon on Roderick, Cooper and Degan; Assault with a
Deadly
Weapon on a helicopter, Harboring a fugitive (Randy); Aiding and
Abetting the
Possession of Firearms by Randy; and Using a Firearm to commit these
crimes.

The trial
lasted about two months, and the government called 56 witnesses. After
that, we
rested our case without calling a single witness. On July 8, 1993,
after more
than 10 months in custody, the jury found me not guilty of all charges.

Since that day
at the Y, I have learned that Mr. Roderick and Mr. Cooper

claimed that
we ambushed the marshals; and Mr. Cooper claims that I just wheeled and
shot
Marshal Degan for no more reason than that he called out to me.

I want to say
this as clearly as I possibly can, so that there is absolutely no
mistake about
it in anyone's mind: what Mr. Roderick and Mr. Cooper say is false.

I would not
have been anywhere near those woods if I had known that all those men
with
assault rifles and a silenced submachine gun, and who knows what other
weapons,
were out there.We were just walking
along the trail to the Y, making a target of ourselves.

If I had
wanted to shoot someone I had the perfect opportunity when I saw the
man with
the dog—he wasn't even looking at me. But I didn’t shoot him, because I
didn't
have any intention of shooting anyone.

The first
thing that happened at the Y is that someone shot Striker. I saw that,
and I
know It with complete certainty. Everything else that happened followed
from
that.

Marshal Thomas
Norris, who was on the 6-man team that day, reported in his statement
to the
FBI, and testified under oath at my trial, that the first three shots
find at
the Y had "the distinctive sound of a .223? And anyone who has been
around
guns knows that the sound of a .223 is very different from the big boom
of a
30.06

I learned
later that when Marshal Hunt got down to Mrs. Rau's house he left her
with the
impression that the dog was shot first—her statement to the FBI says
that he
told her, “Roderick finally put the dog down.Right after he put the dog down the marshals realized they
were going to
be ambushed by the Weavers.”

I also learned
later, long after my trial had begun, that when Captain Dave Neal of
the Idaho
State Police team got to the Y late that night and met with Mr.
Roderick, that
Mr. Roderick left him with the clear impression that the dog had been
shot
first.

And after the
Justice Department report came out, I learned that Mr. Henry Hudson,
the
director of the United
States Marshals Service, had the same
impression. At page 184 of the report, Mr. Danny Coulson is quoted,
saying that
he met with Director Hudson and two other high officials from the
Marshals
Service on the evening of the 21st. Mr. Hudson described the incident
this way:
"One of the DUSMS had been attacked by a dog, and had shot the dog,
which
started a firefight. During the firefight, one DUSM had been killed..."

Also, Mr.
Cooper has denied all along that he shot Sam. After the FBI found Sam's
body in
the birthing shed Marshal Mike Johnson said at a press conference that
I shot
Sam in the back. They came here and told you that it was Randy.

But the
government's own expert witness Dr. Fackler said at my trial that
Cooper shot
Sam. And he was right.

According to
their story, no one knew that Sam had been killed until the found his
body the
following week. But we've known all along that this was false because
first I,
and then Randy and Vickie, walked down to Sam's body in plain view of
the Y
where the marshals were. I held up my hands and said I was going to
look at
Sam—Vickie and Randy cried and wailed loudly. We learned only last week
that a
former Justice Department official, Mr. Jeffrey Howard, knew that Sam
was dead
less than 24 hours after he was killed. I understand that Mr. Hudson
provided a
statement to the FBI after the trial in which he said the same thing.
How can
these men have known about this unless they were told by one of the
marshals on
the scene?

I never met
Mr. Degan, but everyone says that he was a very good man.

I’m very very
sorry that he's dead.

I don't know
what his intentions were, and I'll probably never know. I think it's
possible
that he was just like I was—in the middle of something that shouldn't
have
happened, that he didn't start, and that was out of his control.

Sitting in
that cabin for 8 or 9 days, I was not only scared of dying—in fact, at
times,
dying didn't look so bad. But I felt sure that if I did survive, I'd be
given a
meaningless trial in a kangaroo court, and then sent off to prison for
the rest
of my life, or even executed.

After all I've
been through, I'm truly thankful for the court system we have in this
country.
In many other countries in the world just the word of the deputy
marshal would
have been all it took to put me away forever, or worse. But the court
system
worked--it presumed me innocent, appointed lawyers to represent me, and
gave me
a fair trial with a jury. And the jury acquitted me.